It is a testament almost exclusively to the actors that Unplugging is not more aggravating than it has turned out to be. The plot is a familiar one, in which a married couple decides to detox from their devices in an extremely small town, known for just how thoroughly off the grid it is. The conflicts are few, ranging from their marital difficulties and unspoken grievances to the litany of troubles getting in touch with those back home. It’s not much of a movie, to be honest, which is why the efforts of the cast – both the two actors on the poster and the handful in the supporting ensemble – are so vital. They don’t make director Debra Neil-Fisher’s movie work, but they do try their hardest and get some of the way there.
The couple in a rut are Dan (Matt Walsh, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Brad Morris) and Jeanine Dewerson (Eva Longoria). He develops hot sauces from scratch, which means he has a lot of downtime to play video games and watch DIY videos on YouTube, and she works in commercial leasing, a job that requires the constant usage of her smartphone and laptop at any given moment. Their lives are lived practically in diametric opposition, and it winds up teaching Dan a lesson in a most unexpected way. His regular delivery driver Juan (Al Madrigal, making the most of his limited screen time) dies suddenly from an aortic dissection, and a few choice words at his funeral light an inspirational bulb in the head of Dan.
The plan is to head out of the hustle and bustle of their lives, which becomes a lot easier when Jeanine’s bosses require a two-week leave of absence to work on her personal priorities and to learn the importance of workplace boundaries (i.e., not sending emails at 3:42 in the morning or on federally observed holidays). The town might as well be called Nowhere, USA, for how far out of the way it is, and the rest of Morris and Walsh’s screenplay divides the action between the various arguments that arise between Dan and Jeanine and the series of weird misadventures co-starring all the country bumpkins. In other words, the movie is one very long joke about how funny the backwoods folk truly are, and that joke unfortunately gets old too quickly for even the game actors to keep up the momentum.
There is some strong comic potential here, too. Lea Thompson appears as Perkins, who has similarly disconnected herself from technology, though for entirely different reasons. She believes drones operated by both the C.I.A. and the Chinese military are flying overhead to collect information. Keith David is Gil, both a bartender at the local dive and the proprietor of the only convenience store in town, who worries about nothing and has seen everything in his day. Johnny Pemberton is Gil’s nephew Tim, whose sense or understanding of humor has apparently not developed at all into adulthood.
These are simple, one-joke roles, filled by actors who somehow are able to bring them to life, despite next to nothing existing on the page. As for the other half of the movie, Walsh and Longoria are both naturally funny and likable, but their relationship is entirely based around the zero-stakes conflict of needing to be more honest with each other. It leads to a lot of wheel-spinning, a strange detour involving escaping the wrath of a farmer (with his broken-legged chicken in tow) and some unearned pathos. Unplugging is just too feather-light to make any impression, though that also means it’s hard to be disappointed by anything here.
Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment
The post Unplugging appeared first on Spectrum Culture.