Golden Exits

In much the same way that the Manhattan of Woody Allen’s movies is for the neurotics, the Brooklyn of Alex Ross Perry is for the gloomy. Golden Exits is a chamber piece in apartments and locales within a small neighbourhood radius, populated by creative and interesting people – most of them oozing with aimless desire and potential. In the midst of all this lands the Australian intern Naomi (Emily Browning), to spend the rest of the summer in the office of spineless Nick (portrayed by Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys). Together, they will sort and file the papers left by Nick’s father-in-law – with Nick’s wife (Chloë Sevigny) and sister-in-law (Mary-Louise Parker) paying close attention to their every move. As Nick’s wife points out in a characteristically dry manner: this is his eighth assistant, six of which have been women. Naomi sometimes meets Buddy (Jason Schwartzman), a friend of the family, who is as insecure in his meetings with Naomi and in an equally performative and over-analyzed marriage as Nick.

Golden Exits was met by rave reviews from several critics, including Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: «A virtuoso of unease, the 33-year-old Mr Perry makes films that seem almost calculated to go against the grain of contemporary American independent cinema. He isn’t interested in tidy or nice stories and feelings, much less lessons, uplift, closure or relatability. His movies are talky, intimate to the point of claustrophobia, and populated by characters that can be charitably described as prickly. You wouldn’t necessarily want to spend time with them in real life; among other things, their foibles can feel squirmingly familiar. But Mr Perry is such a good filmmaker that he can make the embarrassing and the unbearable insistently, fascinatingly engrossing (and often funny)».