David Duchovny makes an awkward writing-directing debut with this drama about an artist (Duchovny) recalling his turbulent adolescence in 1970s Greenwich Village. Anton Yelchin is maddeningly idiosyncratic as the artist as a young man – he has the mannered, halting speech pattern of a nervous stand-up comic – while Duchovny’s wife Tea Leoni provides the movie’s only stable moments as the boy’s single mother. Robin Williams plays his mentally challenged co-worker and only friend, and the fact that this isn’t the only reason for the film’s high squirm factor will give you some idea of its off-key tone.
