The Premise

The Chumscubber is one of those satirical movies which just leaves you gleefully contemplating over the incidents, the characters and the setting of it all. It tells the story of teenager Dean (Jamie Bell), the typcial outcast living with his family in suburban America, who stumbles upon the dead body of his best friend, Troy (Josh Janowicz). Apparently, Troy had hung himself in his room while his mother was holding a tea party for her guests. Dean, who decided that the adults wouldn't care much for the incident, decided to keep mum and left the house. Of course, the body was eventually found and Dean was questioned.

Apart from the adults, Troy's croonies soon start knocking on Dean's door as well. Cos u see, Troy ran a 'business' selling hallucinogenic drugs to distraught youths unable to withstand the harshness of reality, especially of relationships and of themselves. Dean, apart from being Troy's best friend, was actually one of his clients as well, and these legal substances (Prozac etc.) were his only way of overcoming his adolescent pains. Troy's gang, consisting of Crystal (Camilla Belle), Billy (Justin Chatwin) and Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci), decided that Dean was the one who knew where Troy kept his supply of drugs so that they could continue the business. In a bid to make him go get the drugs, they kidnapped his brother, Charlie (Rory Culkin), for a ransome. Problem was, they kidnapped the wrong Charlie (Thomas Curtis).

Meanwhile, the adults went about their daily lives. Dean's mother (Allison Janney) went on promoting and selling her MLM health products while his father (William Fichtner) went on his research on Dean for his new self-help book; Charlie's mother (Rita Wilson) went on being busy getting married to the mayor (Ralph Fiennes) while the mayor went on contemplating the meaning of life as what a self-help book (written by none other than Dean's father) had talked about; Crystal's mother (Carrie-Anne Moss) went on pretending to be a seductive teenager who could mingle with her daughter's boyfriends and was secretly jealous of her daughter's good looks; Lee's parents went on trying to be the model parents who were involved in their son's life, albiet superficially; Billy's father went on being helpless against his aggressive son. All these adults went on their perfect little lives in suburban America, all except for Troy's mother (Glenn Close), who handled her grief in a manner that's funny yet heartbreaking.

However, the one question that hung on everyone's mind was that why didn't Dean have any reaction to his best friend's death watsoever? This, as it turns out, is the real essence of this excellent little movie.

My opinion

This movie is essentially about the lack of connections among us – Parents don't connect with their children and even with the people around them. Everyone is just so engrossed in their tiny universe that they fail to stop and take a closer look at what each of the characters are feeling. Dean, the protagonist, lives in a seemingly beautiful environment that is emotionally void. His father, while claiming to be having a man-to-man talk with him about his feelings of seeing his best friend dead, ends up taking down notes of their conversation for his research as a Psychologist. He was befriended by the beautiful Crystal, only to find out that she was in fact sent by Billy and Lee to gather information from him on the missing stash of drugs. Betrayal after betrayal of his feelings leads him to build a wall around himself, hoping to feel better by being in isolation and by relying heavily on the psychiatric medication prescribed by his father, who insisted that he had a psychological problem, to which Dean never contested against. Even the other teens faced problems of their own, and often they found out it was entirely up to them to solve these problems - no adult actually cared other than making themselves seem as much like model parents as they could.

If you can get your hands on the DVD, do watch it a second time with the commentries cos interesting trivia regarding the conception of the story and the techniques do pop up which adds subtle but significant weight to the message behind the story. For example, the conversation between adults were purposely scripted in a way which reflected an immature sense of self and their environment, whilst the teenagers in general got the more sophiscated dialogue which drove in the point that teenagers know and understand more than we think. Even camera techniques were employed to reinforce this whereby scenes with the teenagers were filmed from a higher point than in scenes with the adults, suggesting a switch in roles (adults looking down on teenagers in real life as compared to adults looking up to teenagers in the movie).

That said, this is not at all a movie that supports or promotes rebelliousness in teens. Instead, it shows how dysfunctional relationships and behaviours can become when feelings are left unchecked and communication takes a backseat in the creation of our busy, idealistic lives. Rebelliousness has its consequences, as shown in the movie, and knowing when to stop and seek out some form of emotional support from significant others helps bring one's life back into balance, and this was portrayed not only in the teenagers, but in the adults as well.

To quote from a review, “it is a dark comedy, and even while it is very funny in parts, the humor is always attached to black vignettes that are so truthful they can become terrifying.”

The cast

I remember saying once that if Jamie Bell continues his level-headedness in his choice of scripts, he will go on to do big things in this industry. This movie definitely is one of those good choices which has given him an excellent platform in showcasing what he really is capable of. Whether it was scenes of being dulled by the drugs, or being betrayed of his feelings, or simply being overwhelmed by the events going around him, Bell handles each of them with the right amount of care and with ease. And he does all this while managing a fairly good American accent. British actors and actresses just seem more apt at the American accent than vice versa…

The last I saw Camilla Belle was in The Ballad of Jack and Rose. Impressive performance in that movie and she managed to hold her own against veteran actor Daniel Day-Lewis as father and daughter living in isolation from society. This time, she plays Crystal, the typical well-dressed, pretty, high-school belle kind of character. Crystal, though surrounded by friends, shares a sense of loneliness with Dean as her friends (Billy and Lee) seldom listen to what she has to say and her mother is literally vying with her own daughter in terms of looks and sex-appeal. Belle does manage to portray that sense loneliness in a world full of people nicely. And Belle and Bell do share some excellent on-screen chemistry too which makes their scenes a joy to watch (man, and they both have same-sounding surnames!).

The other major teenage cast includes Justin Chatwin as the high-school bully and Lou Taylor Pucci as the ‘sidekick’ who has his share of confusion from the world around him. I’ve never seen these actors before but I must say that they both lived up to the expectations of the material.

How about the adult cast? Frankly, they won’t the main leads, but each has done well in their own stories which crossed the paths of one another in some way or another. I mean, look at the stellar cast of strong performers and you know the acting can’t go wrong. Glenn Close is one of the most memorable characters who is, in the end, probably the only one who realizes how she had failed to truly understand her only son, and how the people seemingly closest to you may not be the ones who would share your innermost pain or joy with.

Ralph Fiennes plays the mayor of the town, and his character is probably weirdest one, in my opinion. I seriously couldn’t grasp his obsession with dolphins, which led him to quit his job as mayor and pursue a career as an artist painting nothing but dolphins. And as it turns out, I’m not the only one wondering what the dolphins mean exactly – just look up the IMDB.com comments board under this movie and you’ll see a lively discussion on this. The title The Chumscrubber does elude me also, as I’m still not sure as to what it actually represents. I suppose on that aspect, the filmmakers have failed. Maybe if it was clearer it would have created a bigger impact on the main story.

Conclusion

All in all, I enjoyed this movie. While there are messages behind the story, it’s presented in an unpretentious manner which in no way compromises its entertainment value. That, to me, is my definition of a good movie. It may not be perfect, but it’s definitely worth watching.

Trivia

The Chumscrubber, in the movie, is a actually a video game character who survives some chemical catastrophe and is left with a detached head, while others around him have turned into flesh-eating zombies. To fend off these zombies, he uses throws his head at them to kill them. I think from the commentaries this character actually represents the teenager, who has come to a point in life where suddenly he/she is thrown into adulthood and having to realize for the first time how precarious the outside world can be. The detached head probably represents the effects of suppressive drugs in the movie which detaches the teenager from having to try to make sense of the world, and simply handle the world with their own instincts.

According to the commentaries, the animal which the Ralph Fienne's Mayor was supposed to be obsessed with was the porpoise. But because Fiennes couldn't draw porpoises, he drew dolphins instead. Thing is, according to Dictionary.com, porpoises does include dolphins. So, what exactly was the dolphin supposed to mean???

Here's what some netizens suggested on IMDB:

By cute_koala: I think the dolphin represents the Mayor. He kept saying there were no accidents, no coincidences, so I guess he thought the dolphin was fate, it was a sign that he was doing the right thing. It gave him hope in the midst of his controlling wife and political life that things would go the way they were supposed to, and since in suburbia, everyone is so pressured to do things right and be the right person, the Mayor obsessed over the dolphins. I guess the dolphins sort of symbolized a way out, you know?

By cold_play: At the end of the movie when troy is the chumscrubber he talks of what had just happened in the town as if it were a quest for him. The reason for his death was unknown throughout the movie and we were all made to assume it was the drugs, but perhaps troy knew something we weren't told directly and it was that his death will trigger all these events and teach the town the moral of their lives, eg. when Crystal said to charlie at one stage about pretending to be someone else for so long that you actually become that person, and in the end she discovered where she was meant to be although she knew it all along.... perhaps like 'chumscrubber' had given her courage to persue her real identity. Perhaps when they mayor talked of "it" coming in the shape of a dolphin, it's the Chumscrubber... like i know it sounds cliche but when "it" came to him it was troy's force. And if you remember he quit as mayor and persued other things.

By lil_lebowski: This is just my interpretation, so bear with me. We see dolphins as always smiling, always acting like nothing is wrong. I'm inclined to think that this is a parallel to Michael's life as the mayor; he's supposed to put on a good face, cut ribbons, hand out medals, etc. I think he takes some comfort in the shape of a dolphin because he can relate to how they are perceived.

Well, it's anyone's guess, really...

Oh yeah, and Ralph Fiennes himself painted those dolphins in the house.