A first feature from Scott Prendergast, who also wrote it and stars, “Kabluey” is the story of Salman (“Like Salman Rushdie,” he helpfully explains), a sad-sack slacker who moves in with his sour sister-in-law in Austin, Texas. He needs a place to stay. She needs someone to babysit her two horrendous sons.
The stage is set for exactly the sort of movie we don’t need to see again, with a clueless man trying to parent and getting kicked in the crotch for his troubles. And, admitted, there are a few scenes like that.
But “Kabluey” is a lot more.
*** 1/2 RATING | Humor/Satire
On one level, it’s a surprisingly moving story of life on the home front and in a recession. The reason Lisa Kudrow needs that day-care help is because she’s had to go back to work full time while her husband’s National Guard unit is in Iraq. Yet it’s still not enough; her kitchen counter is cluttered with past-due bills and the dotcom she’s with is in the last stages of insolvency.
On another, it’s a dreamily surreal story. Looking for pocket money, Salman gets a job with her company as its corporate mascot, a big blue stick figure with a head like a globe; dropped off for three days a week at the side of a Texas county road, he’s supposed to pass out fliers and provide “visibility.” Standing there alone — huge head drooping in dejection, cornfields rustling behind him — he’s an instant image of alienation.
But “Kabluey” isn’t just alternately surreal and serious. It’s also very funny.
Prendergast, who like Kudrow started at L.A.’s Groundlings comedy troupe, overdoes Salman’s disaffection a bit at the start, making him seem more disturbed than depressed. But the character begins to settle in over the course of the movie, and the costume is brilliant, the concept so minimalist it allows you to read all sorts of emotions in just the smallest, most casual movement.
Kudrow is great, too. Fans who know her only from TV’s “Friends” don’t know half of what she can do; her brittle, sometimes bitter line readings have enlivened movies from “The Opposite of Sex” through “P.S. I Love You.” Her character here — messily emotional and flawed — is a rich one, and Prendergast knows that. In one powerful scene, the camera tracks back as she walks down the block in silence, an entire novel playing across her face.
Of course, this scene follows an attack on a trysting executive by a woman wearing a gigantic cheese costume.
But that’s the sort of film “Kabluey” is, a mix of weird visual humor and suddenly sharp social satire, of silent slapstick and occasionally tearful drama. It is terrific, smart, challenging and different — which is why, I suppose, it’s playing on about 1/3,000th of the screens that “The Love Guru” is still stinking up.
But track it down. Or you’ll be missing not only a very funny film — and an actress’ terrific performance — but also an incredibly promising debut.
“Kabluey”
PG-13 with very strong language and adult situations. 1 hour, 26 minutes. Directed by Scott Prendergast. Starring Lisa Kudrow. Opens today at the Neighborhood Flix.
