Goats

Adapted from Mark Jude Poirier's novel, filmmaker Christopher Neil's Goats centers on 15-year-old Ellis (Graham Phillips), who lives near Tucson with his well-to-do, indolent single mom Wendy (Vera Farmiga)—long divorced from Frank (Ty Burrell), the ex-husband she utterly loathes. Self-absorbed Wendy simultaneously manages to dote on her son while overlooking his emotional needs. In Frank's absence, Ellis has found a substitute father in Javier (David Duchovny)—also known as Goat Man—a scruffy, pot-loving, goat-tending groundskeeper with whom he shares copious amounts of weed. When Ellis suddenly decides to enroll in his hated father's old prep school back East, he undergoes a process of maturation that includes familiar elements—roommate troubles, an adolescent infatuation, visits with Frank, estrangement from Javier, and hostility toward his mother's obnoxious new kept man. While Goats isn't terrible—apart from the goat fixation and Duchovny's zonked-out turn—it also doesn't offer much in the coming-of-age genre that hasn't already been done better. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD extras include a “making-of” featurette (11 min.), “Home Movies” segments (3 min.), deleted scenes (2 min.), “The Mailman's Lament” audio segment, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a disappointing film.] (F. Swietek)