Chumbscrubber

What can one say about The Chumbscrubber (2005)? It is a bizarre film dependent on a premise of the suburbs are not perfect. There is a whole lot of not right in the head going on there. Every character in the film, is in some way or the other just not quite right or normal. Some characters are down right crazy or psychotic. Throw into the mix a suicide, a plot to obtain drugs and mayor who's had a strange epiphany and you have this film. Well, kind of.

It was interesting to view the different levels of sanity in each of the characters, but again it hangs on a premise that you have to actually believe to be truly interesting. The suburbs are in fact not perfect, I'm not sure anyone in their right mind actually believes that they are. This movie seems like it was made by a guy who lives in the city proper and looks at a suburb, almost disdainfully as a crazy place.

This film was about as infuriating to me as American Beauty (1999), another film that wanted to expose the suburbs. There seems to be such a disconnect between what reality really is when represented by these auteurs of film. Despite decent performers by all the actors, the young ones like Jamie Bell and Camilla Belle especially, this movie was unsatisfying and at times a little to oblique for me.