The title of Tim Blake Nelson’s latest directorial effort, Anesthesia, is primed for jokes regarding the experience of watching it. Structurally, it resembles Paul Haggis’ Crash and Altman films, with sweeping interconnectedness that here proves to be a casual abstraction much like the philosophical speeches littered heavily throughout the uninspiring film. The characters are also lackluster, but they’re successful in their portrayal of the comfortable, upper-class whiteness—except one narrative thread—in today’s New York City. They are the privileged but grounded brownstoners and non-conspicuous spenders of the Upper West Side and Brooklyn Heights.
Tragedy sets off the film with the stabbing of philosophy professor Walter Zarrow (Sam Waterston) after his weekly flower purchase at a neighborhood bodega, which is shot in a real-time long take with the vague interest of security footage. The voices and camera are intentionally far away to hinder interpretation. In the next scene, he’s keeled over a tile entryway painted bright scarlet with his blood. The haphazard accident lacks a sense of gravity despite his frantic cries for help. Likewise, characters touched by the incident don’t seem like their worlds have been rocked either, as the film soon tells us by rewinding to a few days prior. The storylines: a depressive grad student (Kristen Stewart) contemplates life and pain; Walter’s son (Tim Blake Nelson) and grandchildren deal with the news of their mother’s tumor; a mother (Gretchen Mol) and her two daughters suffer in the suburbs; a man and woman (Corey Stoll, Mickey Sumner) navigate romance; a man commits his longtime best friend to get clean (Michael K. Williams, K. Todd Freeman).
Alone, none of these stories hold much weight; together they don’t fare much better with their shared similarity being their unhappiness and dissatisfaction—but such is life. Too earnest to be called hipster existentialism, Anesthesia depicts a tugging wave of gentle ennui and explores it gingerly, not unlike a college freshman leisurely perusing Schopenhauer for the first time—except the film, with its satisfactory camerawork and mid-level magazine luster, isn’t a freshman or even sophomore effort.
The characters are in the habit of communicating their composed and sage sentiments directly to each other. This isn’t a “show, don’t tell” error since Nelson clearly establishes the talky sort of picture Anesthesia is, along with its intent and philosophical underpinnings. The fault lies in the clunkiness of the “telling.” Monologues range from bland and unmoving to delightful—the precociousness of two teen siblings matches the dialogue, and the young actors Hannah Marks and Ben Konigsberg excel at capturing it. Other times, it’s forced and awkward—Corey Stoll’s character bemoaning the “self-conscious multicultural” tomes that he and his wife discuss to fill the silence. Nelson hasn’t yet perfected the level of intellectual pitter-patter banter toward which he strives.
The majority of the largely talented cast seem to have been instructed to recite their lines with airs of romantic regret that aren’t quite earned within the context of the movie’s shallow material. They fare better when acting out: Kristin Stewart is memorable as the depressive grad student (even if she does edge toward histrionic sad-girl, a now customary role) as is K. Todd Freeman playing the conventional part of brilliant-but-addicted. Their screams soar above the anesthetized crowds wallowing in complacency.
