The Intervention

Actress Clea DuVall makes her directorial debut in this indie spin on The Big Chill, in which a group of old college friends reunite for a weekend get-together so that Annie (Melanie Lynskey) can stage an intervention for an eternally bickering couple (Cobie Smulders and Vincent Piazza) locked in what she is convinced is a toxic marriage. This is very much an actors' showcase: eight characters (DuVall, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Schwartz, and Jason Ritter fill out the old friends, with Alia Shawkat as the twentysomething newcomer in the mix) with heavy baggage do their best to ignore the weight. The sometimes heavy-handed script doesn't feature many surprises and the issues are familiar and, in a couple of cases, pretty easy to overcome. But DuVall favors the performances—she wrote the central role for Lynskey, a hidden treasure of American independent cinema—and the ensemble. Lynskey is brilliant as a neurotic busybody who has turned denial of her own issues into the art of distraction; she is both funny and heartbreaking as she drowns her insecurities with day drinking while trying to steer the weekend as it (inevitably) careens from one combustion to another. DuVall's direction is more nuanced and revealing than her writing, turning what might have been another theater piece on screen into a funny, painful, and often entertaining getaway with characters who have the capacity to surprise us even if their problems do not. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)