Finding Amanda

Although this may seem obvious (and perhaps a bit cruel), Matthew Broderick is not Ferris Bueller. That fact has been made abundantly clear in the 1990s and 2000s with his habitual casting--and pitch-perfect performances--as losers. Whether in the new classic Election or in the less-seen Then She Found Me (one of my early favorites from this year), Broderick can act as dopey, listless, and lazy as a D student. Which is why Finding Amanda is such a disappointment. Broderick does another turn as a loser, but this time no one's laughing. The film is billed as a dark comedy, but I laughed once, and I wasn't very proud of myself for giving up that giggle (apparently I find pimps who aspire to careers in TV writing a little funny).

Finding Amanda features an autobiographical script from Rescue Me's Peter Tolan, with Broderick playing Tolan's alter ego Peter, a TV writer who has seen better days. Alcoholic Peter has a few years of sobriety under his belt--at least that's what the habitual liar tells us--but he can't seem to kick his gambling addiction. His longsuffering wife (the always spot-on Maura Tierney, who's more than a little wasted here) has had enough, but Peter imagines that he can win her back if he's able to rescue her niece from a life of prostitution. Of course, he just has to go to Vegas to save her, and it's no surprise when he begins to slide into old habits. Normally, this would be an incredibly painful descent to watch, and none of the humor manages to lighten the mood. It's all made even worse by the knowledge that this all--more or less--happened to Tolan. He may have exorcised his demons by writing and directing this film, but he might be the only one who's the better for its creation.