There’s something inherently melancholy about an aging salesman. Should a 50-year-old man still have to beg others to validate his existence, every day, pleading for acceptance in the form of a transaction?
It’s a rich vein for drama or comedy, explored most famously by Arthur Miller, of course, or David Mamet in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” or the Brothers Coen with their “Fargo” prototype, Jerry Lundegaard.
It is Hamlet as Ron Popeil: To believe in what you sell can erode the soul; yet to not believe in what you sell may kill the soul forever.
The movies suddenly seem more interested in this material of the male midlife crisis. “In Good Company,” with Dennis Quaid and Scarlett Johannson, took the big-budget route, exploring warm-and-true family issues with a burnished Hollywood sheen.
Now actor Peter Riegert has chosen a low-budget indie concept to take on this inexhaustible subject. “King of the Corner” is Riegert’s debut directing a full- length feature. He co-wrote the script with a Nebraska professor who had sent him a set of short stories when Riegert was visiting Lincoln.
The idea of an aging man in transition resonated so well with Riegert that he also took the lead role. Leo Spivak is coming undone, not with a dramatic flourish, but crack by aggravating crack. He’s sick of his job – he runs focus groups for consumers, and the one on feminine hygiene spray was not a high point. Yet he can’t really afford to lose the work at his age, and the young buck he’s training (Jake Hoffman) would be happy to take over.
At home, his teenage daughter (Ashley Johnson) ignores him and breaks curfew with the local bad boy. His wife (Isabella Rossellini) listens to his job complaints with one ear, if that. His ailing father (Eli Wallach) is not only annoying; Leo has to travel from the East Coast to Arizona every two weeks just to hear him be annoying.
Leo is in the kind of funk where, when the boss calls him into an important meeting, and Leo says he’s busy, we look over his shoulder at his computer and are not the least surprised to catch him playing electronic solitaire.
“King of the Corner” would be too depressing if not for the sardonic wit that clearly attracts Riegert to his roles (“Local Hero,” “Crossing Delancey”). As he helps his daughter write a paper on Robert Frost, they discuss the choice between the main road and the road less traveled.
“Why can’t you just take a side road?” the daughter asks. Indeed. Leo is about to.
Riegert is comfortable playing a character much like himself, but two moments lift his performance and the movie into higher territory.
In one, he faces away from his wife as she discovers unpleasant things about him, and she calls him on it. In the other, he seeks the words to memorialize his unpleasant father. In both, Riegert’s features become untethered, and the loneliness in his eyes is as moving as it is difficult to watch.
It has become a nice trend this past year, the middle-aged man searching for his temporarily misplaced humanity. “In Good Company,” “Winter Solstice” (see review on Page 1F) – and for women, “The Upside of Anger.” They make for absorbing evenings at a theater, and much quiet contemplation afterward.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
“King of the Corner”
***
NOT RATED but includes adult themes and language|1 hour, 30 minutes|COMEDY-DRAMA|Directed by Peter Riegert; written by Riegert and Gerald Shapiro; starring Riegert, Isabella Rossellini, Eli Wallach, Ashley Johnson, Jake Hoffman and Rita Moreno|Opens today at Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli.
