On Screen

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but sometimes, happy suburban families
are not happy. Sometimes, happy families are very, very unhappy,
because sometimes it’s the ’70s, and sometimes the dad cheats on the
mom a lot, and then the dad wants to live in an ugly modern house, and
the mom never wanted to move to Long Island in the first place, and
then Timothy Hutton gets Lyme disease and everything goes to shit. This
is what we, in sarcastic circles, call a “newsflash.”

Lymelife concerns one such unhappy suburban family: most
compellingly, the younger son, Scott (Rory Culkin), who’s in love/lust
with the girl next door (Emma Roberts) and struggling with the
realization that his parents don’t love each other anymore, and, least
compellingly, the stupid parents (Jill Hennessy, great, and Alec
Baldwin, impossible to separate from Jack Donaghy), who make their
money manufacturing happiness in the form of housing developments (“the
American dream,
right here on Long Island!”) but, you know, don’t
love each other anymore. Scott shuffles timidly toward manhood (the day
of his confirmation ceremony marks a heavy-handed and literal climax),
squishing quarters on the train tracks, aping Han Solo in the mirror,
and idolizing his cynical older brother (Keiran Culkin), who’s about to
ship out to the Falkland Islands. “Welcome to our wonderful little
family and our perfect little suburban
life,” says cynical older
brother. Ow, Middle Culkin! My head hurts where you BLUDGEONED ME TO
DEATH WITH YOUR POINT.

The groaning plot is relieved somewhat by the almost-supernatural
specter of Lyme disease, at the time a little-understood neurological
nightmare lurking behind every blade of grass. Hutton is fantastic as
girl-next-door’s infected father, slowly and sweatily disintegrating in
the corner of his basement while neighbors whisper that his condition
is “psychosomatic.” But the kids are what really hold the film together
(those Culkins know what they’re doing), making this story that you’ve
heard a thousand times into something sweet and a little strange.