{"id":177,"date":"2009-07-05T17:00:33","date_gmt":"2009-07-05T22:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=177"},"modified":"2021-08-26T09:57:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T14:57:13","slug":"mommas-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/05\/mommas-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Momma’s Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Azazel Jacobs\u2019s low-budget second feature Momma\u2019s Man<\/em> (2008) serves as yet another example of an independent film that deliberately blurs the line between non-fiction and fiction as an alternative narrative strategy (see previous post<\/a>). The thirty-something protagonist is roughly the writer\/director\u2019s age. Jacobs sets the film in the lower-Manhattan loft in which he grew up, casts his own parents \u2013 noted avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and painter Flo Jacobs \u2013 in the role of parents, and his best friend from high school as, well, his best friend. And a flashback to childhood depicts footage of the film\u2019s director rather than lead actor. It\u2019s difficult not to get lost in the autobiographical hall of mirrors Jacobs creates. That Momma\u2019s Man<\/em>, as Voice <\/em>critic J. Hoberman<\/a> suggests, at times slips into something that feels like a psychodrama turns out to be part of the power and fascination of the film<\/p>\n

Momma\u2019s Man<\/em> tells the story of Mikey (Matt Boren), who on a business trip to New York City during which he visits his folks, finds himself unable to leave. That wouldn\u2019t necessarily be a problem, but Mikey has a job and a wife and infant back in Los Angeles. Mikey\u2019s flight gets overbooked and he has to take another one the next day \u2013 but the situation rapidly transforms into something more vexing. Jacobs never makes it clear what is going on with Mikey. Is it nostalgia for his happy childhood? Has Mikey made a double mistake in marrying and having a child? Does he regret relocating to the West Coast? Does it suddenly dawn on him that his parents are growing old? Is his wife having an affair? Is Mikey having a nervous breakdown? For some critics and viewers, Jacobs\u2019s use of buried motivation poses a problem. They want Mikey to be explained, but Jacobs wisely opts for ambiguity.<\/p>\n

Rather than being goal-driven, as manual writers would insist, Mikey is a passive protagonist. His conflict is internal. Part of the pleasure of Momma\u2019s Man<\/em> is watching Mikey\u2019s behavior for clues or hints about what might be going on inside him, and Jacobs provides just enough of them to keep us guessing. Mikey\u2019s parents are perplexed. His father seems caring, but aloof. His mother dotes on him in a very smothering way. Her desire to offer him something to eat or drink becomes an irritating mantra (it\u2019s no wonder he\u2019s overweight). Most people would run for their lives \u2013 I\u2019m speaking of myself here \u2013 but Mikey regresses. He hangs around the loft in his longjohns and watches a movie on television, while lying in bed with his parents. He rummages through old scrapbooks and love letters. He plays the guitar and sings lyrics he\u2019s written in high school so loudly that his father has to tell him to turn the music down.<\/p>\n

Mikey begins to embellish his situation. He\u2019s not being malicious, so much as irresponsible. He lies to his wife Laura (Dana Varon) and even to his parents when he implies that Laura might be having an affair. We do see her visited by a neighbor named Tom (Richard Edson from Jim Jarmusch\u2019s Stranger Than Paradise<\/em>), but there\u2019s no clear evidence that anything is going on. The film begins with a closeup on the clasped hands of Mikey and his mom. He asks, “You sure everything is okay?” She answers, “Of course.” Her initial note to him alludes to a doctor\u2019s appointment. Mikey later tells his co-worker his mother\u2019s been in the hospital as an excuse for missing work. Is she, in fact, ill? There\u2019s no further indication of this either.<\/p>\n

As the film progresses, Mikey develops agoraphobia \u2013 he\u2019s unable to walk down the hallway stairs of the loft. There\u2019s a sense that Manhattan has receded or disappeared, only to be replaced by his family\u2019s claustrophobic loft \u2013 chock full of stuff \u2013 made dark and more womb-like by\u00a0Tobias Datum\u2019s cinematography. When his parents indicate they\u2019re going for dinner in Chinatown, Mikey\u2019s immobility prevents him from joining them. As he attempts to shave, he covers his entire face with lather and stares into the mirror. In an effort to get beyond the threshold of the loft, he gets drunk and crawls on all fours. During the night, he literally hurls himself down the stairs, which succeeds in breaking the spell.<\/p>\n

Mikey seeks out an ex-girlfriend named Bridget (Eleanor Hutchins) after finding an angry letter from when they were in high school. Does he have lingering romantic feelings? When they meet at a coffee shop, Bridget brings along her young child in a stroller. It\u2019s an awkward get-together. She asks, “So, what\u2019s up?” Mikey refers to the letter and apologizes. Bridget appears bewildered. She\u2019s obviously forgotten whatever pain he caused her. When Bridget asks about him, Mikey shows her photos of his wife and daughter, Anna. After she returns them, he stares pensively at the one of Anna. If Bridget is no longer the same person, Mikey\u2019s friend Dante (Piero Arcilesi) \u2013 obsessed with boxing tapes and the Indigo Girls \u2013 also seems to have morphed into someone else. After Dante has a drug relapse, Mikey observes him with bemused detachment as his old pal manically works out and sings “Closer to Fine” off-key.<\/p>\n

The fact that things change seems to be at the root of Mikey\u2019s problem. He wants to stop time, or go backwards. He clings to the past \u2013 to earlier memories. Matt Boren plays Mikey with a quizzical look that fits his character perfectly. There\u2019s a scene toward the end where his mother gets him to sit on her lap like an overgrown baby, dwarfing her in size. The image serves as an apt metaphor. He\u2019s not a momma\u2019s boy, but a grown man \u2013 stuck in a state of arrested development. As he snuggles and cries and his mother comforts him, she recalls a sweet image of her actual son, Azazel, as a child \u2013 fast asleep on a plate of spaghetti. In the old home-movie footage (from Ken Jacobs\u2019s epic Star Spangled to Death<\/em>), she lovingly lifts up Azazel and places him in bed. The next morning, Mikey listens to his phone messages and calls Laura.<\/p>\n

Very little happens in Momma\u2019s Man<\/em>. Jacobs avoids the causality of classical narration. Much of what occurs within the family dynamic involves subtext \u2013 the things that remain largely unspoken. At one point his father demonstrates a mechanical windup toy \u2013 a headless crawling baby. The parents do try to intervene. In a family conference, his father confronts him, but Mikey becomes defensive and snaps, “Are you asking me to leave?” His mother inquires about Laura, “Is there someone else?” As Mikey begins to cry, his father presses him, but his mother insists, “It\u2019s all right. You can stay here as long as you want.” His father later overhears a despondent message from Laura on the answering machine and watches Mikey erase it. Later, as Mikey starts to discuss Laura seeing someone, his father responds, “Can you recall us once lying to you?”<\/p>\n

In Momma\u2019s Man<\/em>, Jacobs employs an episodic structure in which the dramatic and character arcs have been flattened. Just as mysteriously as Mikey falls into a personal crisis, his funk lifts by the film\u2019s end (though I\u2019m sure there will be consequences once he gets back to Los Angeles). I suspect some female viewers will find Mikey\u2019s self-absorption to be a problem \u2013 for obvious reasons. But it\u2019s Jacobs\u2019s willingness to explore these issues so honestly that makes Momma\u2019s Man<\/em> such an absorbing and distinctive character study.<\/p>\n

Momma\u2019s Man <\/em>played at the Wisconsin Film Festival back in April. It\u2019s now available on DVD from Kino Video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Azazel Jacobs\u2019s low-budget second feature Momma\u2019s Man (2008) serves as yet another example of an independent film that deliberately blurs the line between non-fiction and fiction as an alternative narrative strategy (see previous post). The thirty-something protagonist is roughly theRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4308,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/4308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}