“The Extra Man”: Kevin Kline’s magnificent oddness

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:30:00 +0000

I'm tempted to describe "The Extra Man" as an intriguing little movie that doesn't totally work -- but doesn't that rather patronizing dismissal assume that I understand what it's trying to do? If you've seen writing-directing duo Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's other films, including "American Splendor" and "The Nanny Diaries," you'll already know that they favor a brand of astringent, character-based comedy that isn't easy to describe and, for good or ill, isn't quite like anything else.

"The Extra Man," adapted from a novel by Jonathan Ames, spins a shaggy-dog yarn about Louis Ives (played by Paul Dano), an eccentric young man who seems to have missed his mark in history by 80 years or so. It's no accident that Louis spends an early scene defending Nick Carraway, the personality-free narrator of "The Great Gatsby," against the charge that he's boring. (Louis' own story is also narrated, from time to time, in the plummy, camp-Brit voice of Graeme Malcolm.) Louis loses his job as a prep-school English teacher after an incident involving some purloined ladies' underthings (which is exactly how he would put it) and moves to Manhattan to pursue his dream of becoming the next Scott Fitzgerald, or, more to the point, of becoming Nick Carraway. Possibly Nick Carraway in lingerie.

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“The Extra Man”: Kevin Kline’s magnificent oddness