PARK CITY, Utah (AP) – There is no joy in watching Molly Shannon die for 97 minutes, especially in a movie that’s not really her story.
That’s not a spoiler. Her character’s death is the opening frame of “Other People,” the feature directorial debut of Chris Kelly, who has written for “Saturday Night Live” and “Broad City.” The film, which follows a family across the year their mother is dying of cancer, opened the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday night to a packed crowd at the Eccles Theatre.
The opening night film has a scattered history and can range from Oscar-worthy (“Whiplash”) to Razzie-ready (“The Bronze”). “Other People” doesn’t fit into either extreme, but instead languishes in that murky middle territory where there is promise, emotional truth and comedic prowess, but there’s also clunky character development, banal clichés and little insight in the end.
That first scene sets the tone. It opens on a family of four (Jesse Plemons, Bradley Whitford, Maude Apatow and Madisen Beaty) sobbing over their dead mother’s body. Then a phone rings. Then it goes to the answering machine. Then the woman, calling to offer her sympathies, pauses to order some takeout.
That Kelly embraces humor and comedy within this terribly sad situation is one of the film’s strongest attributes. Dramas, especially of the cancer variety, too often languish in the melancholy. Kelly, who was drawing on his own experiences in writing this script, said that shifting from laughter to sadness was just how life was for him and his family.