I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore

Even if you haven’t been “there”, you’ve been there

I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE, as a sentiment, rings dead-wry true for a whole lot of us living in the present American loonyverse. As a movie, written & directed by the continually surprising Macon Blair, it scores a solid from 2017, if you were lucky enough to catch its black comedy, either streaming or at a film festival.

Revenge does not live by Bronson alone

When the disinterested cops shine on the burglary of her house, frustrated ‘Ruth Kimke’ (Melanie Lynskey) goes after the area lowlifes herself, with the militant, if clumsy, aid of her neighbor ‘Tony’ (Elijah Wood). The lame-o thieves turn out to be connected to even bigger crooks (more fashionable), so Ruth & Tony’s justice quest turns riskier.

Jane Levy

Observant, bitingly funny, and eventually getting pretty violent. Bloody, but acceptable, within the cartoon manner of black comedies. Instantly empathetic, Lynskey has the fed-up thing down, Wood has fun with his sidekick hero wannabe, and Jane Levy gleefully shoplifts her scenes as the half bemused/half zoned wife of the big cheese. Though some of the characters are a bit odd, the actors wisely play it straight, so the lampoon doesn’t undercut reality, therefore more telling and amusing. Cult fave Blair’s directorial debut is expertly paced, the humor wicked, the sudden mayhem jarring, the deviously mirthful results somehow reassuring: it helps to know that other people are just as done with everyone’s thoughtless crap as you are.