Brad's Status
Directed by:
Mike WhiteScreenplay:
Mike WhiteCinematography:
Xavier GrobetComposer:
Mark MothersbaughCast:
Ben Stiller, Jenna Fischer, Austin Abrams, Michael Sheen, Luke Wilson, Jemaine Clement, Shazi Raja, Erin Agostino, Luisa Lee, Nathaly Thibault (more)Plots(1)
Brad (Ben Stiller) has a satisfying career and a comfortable life in suburban Sacramento where he lives with his sweet-natured wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), and their musical prodigy son, Troy (Austin Abrams), but it’s not quite what he imagined during his college days. While showing Troy around Boston, where Brad went to university, he can’t help comparing his life with those of his old college friends: a Hollywood bigshot (director Mike White), a hedge-fund founder (Luke Wilson), a tech entrepreneur (Jemaine Clement), and a political pundit & bestselling author (Michael Sheen). As he imagines their wealthy, glamorous lives, he wonders if cozy middle-class domesticity is the best he will ever achieve. But when circumstances force him to reconnect with his former friends, Brad begins to question whether he has really failed or if, in some essential ways, their lives are more flawed than they appear. (Vertigo Releasing)
(more)Reviews (3)
At the first glance, the film can seem terribly dull and even boring. Ben Stiller plays this dude who is bored of life. He is mainly annoyed by the fact that everybody around him is successful but at the age of almost fifty he can’t even say what he did well in life. Everybody can experience these feelings, but in the script of this movie, it is beautifully underlined by the thoughts which are awfully close to my heart and matched his character very well. The end was cut quite short but basically, I and even Brad got what we wanted. I haven’t seen such a realistic and natural movie about everyday life in a long time.
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Brad Sloan, in a civil and even highly physical portrayal by Ben Stiller, aimed for that subgenre I love so well, of human dramas in which nothing significant or tragic seems to happen, but the viewer's heart aches within a few minutes, without being able to explain why. This is precisely the middle-age crisis in a vivid portrayal that does not need the worn-out (and essentially untrue) clichés about twenty-year-old assistants and motorcycles. This journey is only about passing on one's own experiences to those who have never stumbled, because they didn't have to. It's about how strong a person feels in their twenties in terms of values and attitudes – and how many of those they lose along the way. And how seeing those losses, years, and changes can sometimes be melancholic and difficult, and other times nostalgically precise and even cheerful to the point of tears.
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This film's feels like it’s going nowhere. It’s basically just about a mid-life crisis, wherein Stiller's character doesn't know if he's doing something wrong and doesn't know if he's made a big mistake in his life. The fact that everyone has a different perspective on one thing is captured well here. In terms of the acting, it’s good, but the plot still feels like it's going nowhere.
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