Review: ‘Vengeance’ (2022), starring B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae and Ashton Kutcher

January 12, 2023

by Carla Hay

Ashton Kutcher and B.J. Novak in “Vengeance” (Photo by Patti Perret/Focus Features)

“Vengeance” (2022)

Directed by B.J. Novak

Culture Representation: Taking place in Texas and briefly in New York City, the comedy/drama film “Vengeance” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A New York City podcaster is persuaded to go to rural Texas to investigate the drug-overdose death of a woman whom he briefly dated. 

Culture Audience: “Vengeance” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star/filmmaker B.J. Novak and movies about crime investigations that take dark comedic jabs at society.

B.J. Novak asnd Boyd Holbrook in “Vengeance” (Photo by Patti Perret/Focus Features)

The comedy/drama “Vengeance” puts a satirical spin on a familiar movie concept of a stranger coming to an area to investigate a possible crime, with the stranger feeling like a “fish out of water.” The stranger then usually lets judgment get clouded by internal prejudices, as well as the prejudices of people around the stranger. “Vengeance” makes some of its cultural stereotypes too broad and heavy-handed, and the movie’s ending could have been better. Overall, the story can hold viewers’ interest, as long as there’s tolerance for what the movie is saying about personal biases.

B.J. Novak, a former co-star and writer of the U.S. comedy TV series “The Office,” makes his feature-film directorial debut with “Vengeance,” a movie that he also wrote. “Vengeance” starts out very strong with biting comedy. And then, it meanders back and forth between an intriguing investigation and clumsily handled culture shock, with jokes that are hit and miss. The ending of “Vengeance” is meant to be a surprise twist, but observant viewers can see some clues leading up this ending and can figure out why Novak chose to end the movie this way.

In “Vengeance” (which had its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival), Novak portrays Ben Manalowitz, a politically liberal podcaster who lives and works in New York City. Ben, who is also a writer for The New Yorker, is every cliché (for better or worse) of what many people think about a college-educated, New York City media person. Depending on someone’s perspective, Ben is either well-versed and knowledgeable about many topics, or he’s a a smug intellectual snob.

The movie opens with a hilarious scene of Ben and musician John Mayer (portraying himself) having a conversation at a rooftop party in New York City. The conversation topic for these two bachelors is dating. John says, “I don’t ever want to go past knowing what someone’s parents do for a living. If I know what someone has done for a living, I’ve hung too long.”

Ben replies in agreement: “Or siblings. Why does anyone care about your siblings, especially so early [of meeting a potential partner]? Has that ever changed whether you want to date somebody?” John says, “People say guys like us are afraid of commitment. No, we’re afraid of commitment to something we can’t get out of.”

Ben adds, “There’s no such thing as commitment. Fear of commitment is fear of regret.” John replies, “100%. Or fear of intimacy. Please. I’m intimate with everybody.” If only “Vengeance” had more of this type of banter in the movie, it would have been a lot funnier. Viewers won’t get to see much of Ben’s life in New York City, because he will soon be plunged into an unexpected investigation in rural Texas.

It just so happens that Ben wants to do a new investigative series for his podcast, so he pitches an idea to his podcast producer Eloise (played by Issa Rae), who is smart and sarcastic. Ben says that he wants to do a series about why the United States is so divided. However, as he tells Eloise his theory: “America isn’t divided by space. America is divided by time.”

Eloise replies, “Not every white guy in New York needs to have a podcast. You got the verified checkmark. You got The New Yorker position.” Ben says, “I want something more. I don’t just want to be writer. I want to be a voice. As dorky as it sounds, I care about America.”

At home one night, Ben is asleep when he is woken up by the sound of his phone ringing. The person on the other line is sobbing, and he identifies himself as Ty Shaw (played by Boyd Holbrook), who is a complete stranger to Ben. Ty lives in a rural part of western Texas, about a five-hour drive away from the city of Abilene. It’s a very politically conservative part of Texas that has almost the opposite of the environment and lifestyle that Ben has in New York City.

At first, Ben doesn’t know the reason for Ty’s call, until Ty tells Ben that Ty is the older brother of Abilene “Abby” Shaw (played by Lio Tipton, in flashbacks), who recently died of an opioid overdose at a party in a Texas oil field. Ben and Abby had a fling some years ago that he almost forgot about until Ty’s phone call.

Ty is under the impression, based on the way Abby talked about Ben, that Ben and Abby were in a serious, long-distance relationship. The reality is that Ben and Abby haven’t seen or been in contact with each other for years. Ben tries to tell Ty this information, but Ty is so grief-stricken and insistent that Ben was the love of Abby’s life, Ben goes along with it.

It isn’t long before Ty has convinced Ben to go to Texas for Abby’s funeral, where Ben is asked to give a eulogy about Abby. At the funeral, Ben finds out that Abby was an aspiring singer, so he awkwardly says in his speech: “I know she loved music. She will always be a song in our hearts.”

Ty soon tells Ben that he believes that Abby’s overdose death was murder. Ty also insists that he and Ben are going to track down whoever allegedly murdered Abby. Ty says to Ben: “You and me, we’re the men in her lives. And they fucked with the wrong two guys.”

Ben tells Ty: “I don’t avenge deaths. I don’t live in a Liam Neeson movie.” Ty responds, “You kind of look like a guy in a Liam Neeson movie.” Ty names “Schindler’s List” as “my least-favorite Liam Neeson movie. Huge downer.” Ty adds, “Stay down here and avenge Abby’s death with me.”

Ben doesn’t take Ty’s murder theory seriously, but Ben sees this investigation as the perfect idea for his next podcast series. He tells Eloise about it and says, “This isn’t a story about vengeance. It’s a story about the need for vengeance, the meaning of vengeance.” Eloise asks, “Dead white girl?” Ben replies, “The holy grail of podcasts.”

And so, Ben ends up getting to know Ty and the rest of the loud and boisterous Shaw family. They include Ty’s three other siblings: 24-year-old sister Paris (played by Isabella Amara), who’s an aspiring filmmaker; 17-year-old sister Kansas City (played by Dove Cameron), who’s an aspiring “celebrity”; and 9-year-old El Stupido (played by Eli Abrams Bickel), who isn’t called by any other name in the movie.

The siblings’ mother is feisty Sharon Shaw (played by J. Smith-Cameron) and grandmother Carole Shaw (played by Louanne Stephens), who is very racist against people of Mexican heritage. One of the movie’s jokes about Carole is that she doesn’t know that Texas lost the battle of Alamo. Unfortunately, all of the Shaw family characters except for Ty are very underdeveloped and are nothing but hollow stereotypes.

Ben and Ty are told that Mexican drug dealers probably killed Abby. During this investigation, Ben meets and interviews several local people who might have information on what happened to Abby on the night that she died. These locals include a smarmy music producer named Quentin Sellers (played by Ashton Kutcher), who was working with Abby on some music recordings; a drug dealer named Sancholo (played by Zach Villa); and County Sheriff Jimenez (played by Rio Alexander), who is every cliché of an unsophisticated cop.

“Vengeance” has some subtle and not-so-subtle comedy poking fun at stereotypes of “city slickers” and “country hicks.” Ben is doing a podcast series about vengeance, but it begins to dawn on him that he is experiencing his other podcast series idea about America being a divided country. Not surprisingly, Ben gets some resistance to his investigation because many of the locals think that Ben is an “outsider” who can’t be trusted. The cast members give competent performances, although enjoyment of “Vengeance” will be affected by how much a viewer thinks Kutcher is convincing or not convincing in portraying a Texan.

All of the characters in “Vengeance” are portrayed as alternately amusing or annoying, which seems to be the movie’s point. “Vengeance” doesn’t point fingers at any particular lifestyle or political belief as better than the rest. The movie shows there’s something irritating and ultimately toxic about any mindset that wants to lump people of different cultures into one degrading stereotype. And sometimes, when people get consumed by an “us versus them” mentality, they can end up with the worst traits of the people they despise.

Focus Features released “Vengeance” in U.S. cinemas on July 29, 2022. The movie was released on digital and VOD on August 16, 2022, and on Blu-ray and DVD on September 20, 2022. Peacock premiered “Vengeance” on September 16, 2022.

Review: ‘The Year Between,’ starring Alex Heller

July 2, 2022

by Carla Hay

Alex Heller in “The Year Between” (Photo by Jason Chiu)

“The Year Between”

Directed by Alex Heller

Culture Representation: Taking place in Illinois, the comedy/drama film “The Year Between” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: In her second year of college, an angry, bipolar woman drops out of school after she has a mental breakdown; she moves back in with her parents and two younger siblings; and she tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life while she instigates conflicts with other people. 

Culture Audience: “The Year Between” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching movies where mental illness is irresponsibly used as an excuse for someone to be rude, selfish and emotionally damaging to other people.

Alex Heller and J. Smith-Cameron in “The Year Between” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

The misguided comedy/drama “The Year Between” is an irritating slog that offensively uses bipolar disorder as an excuse for the central character to be cruel and toxic to everyone around her. She would be an awful person even without a mental illness. Written and directed by Alex Heller (who is also the star of the movie and is in almost every scene), “The Year Between” is loosely inspired by Heller’s real-life experiences with mental health struggles. The movie had its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

Unfortunately, the tone of “The Year Between” misses the mark in both comedy and drama. Watching this dreadful mess is like being stuck for 94 minutes with a whiny, spoiled brat who acts like she can’t stand to be around other people because she thinks everyone else is annoying, but then she does everything in her power to get negative attention from the people she claims she wants to leave her alone. None of this obnoxiousness is depicted in a way that’s entertaining. In fact, it gets downright repetitive and boring.

In “The Year Between” (which takes place in Illinois), Heller portrays Clemence Miller, the hellish narcissist who spends a lot of her time and energy trying to make everyone around her as miserable as she is. The movie only shows a one-year period of time in Clemence’s life, but viewers can easily figure out from conversations in the movie that Clemence has been a mean-spirited troublemaker for a lot longer than a year, probably her entire life. Heller delivers Clemence’s lines of dialogue in a deadpan manner, in this movie’s failed attempt to make “The Year Between” a witty dark comedy.

Clemence’s bipolar disorder is just the movie’s pathetic way of creating scenarios where Clemence expects people to accept or enable her cruelty because she’s mentally ill. The movie has no balance in showing that not all mentally ill people are atrocious to other human beings. That’s why “The Year Between” is very much a vanity project from Heller, who might have intended to make a meaningful comedy/drama about mental illness, but “The Year Between” is just a bungled mockery of mental illness with a dull and predictable story.

A good movie isn’t defined by how “likable” the main characters are. A good movie is defined by how interesting the characters are and how the story is told. And that’s why “The Year Between” is a disappointing clunker in most regards. The movie has some members of the cast who show talent in their performances, but their characters are limited and stuck saying words from Heller’s messy and rambling screenplay.

“The Year Between” is essentially about a woman in her early 20s behaving badly, with a tone that she’s supposed to be a misunderstood anti-hero just because she has bipolar disorder. In real life, bipolar disorder causes extreme highs and lows in emotions. Bipolar disorder can bring out the worst in people, but it does not make someone vile and nasty if that person already had a tendency to be vile and nasty.

From the movie’s opening scene, it’s clear that Clemence is an emotional terrorist who takes other people as emotional hostages, and then she goes on rants about how everyone else in the world is terrible and uncaring to her. In other words, Clemence loves to play the victim when she is in fact the abuser. If Clemence is Heller’s semi-autobiographical portrait of herself, then it’s a very off-putting way to introduce herself to people.

In the beginning of the movie, Clemence is a second-year student at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. She storms into her dorm room and accuses her roommate Eliza of wearing Clemence’s shortcake-flavored Chapstick. Clemence then yells at Eliza by saying that their dorm room is a “pig sty,” when the room is actually neat and orderly, compared to a lot of dorm rooms.

Viewers never see the rest of Clemence’s meltdown, but apparently it got worse, because Eliza made a formal complaint to the school that Eliza feared for her safety because of Clemence’s continual and angry outbursts. It was then decided that Clemence would voluntarily leave the school for an unspecified period of time. The movie never shows Eliza making the complaint or whatever meetings took place with university officials that led to this decision. The next thing viewers see is Clemence being driven away from the campus by Clemence’s concerned and loving mother Sherri (played by J. Smith-Cameron), who owns and manages a home goods store.

Playing the victim as usual, Clemence announces to her mother and anyone else who’ll listen that she has no intention of going back to Western Illinois University or enrolling in any other college/university, because she thinks college life is just too stifling for her. As far as Clemence is concerned, a college education is just a waste of time for her because she doesn’t want to live by any college rules. In other words, she doesn’t want anyone to stand up to her and tell her to act like a decent human being.

After dropping out of college, Clemence has to move back home to Oak Brook, Illinois, where her parents live with Clemence’s two younger teenage siblings. Clemence isn’t happy about being in this living situation, so expect to hear a lot of whining from her about being stuck back in her childhood home with family members who get on her nerves. It’s quite the display of entitlement from a college dropout who has the privilege of having a family who will take her back into the home after being such a screw-up and troublemaker.

As Sherri drives Clemence back to the neighborhood where the family home is, Clemence makes a typical snide Clemence remark as she looks around the neighborhood: “Someone should bomb the place.” Clemence gets even more agitated when she finds out that she has to live in the basement because her parents turned her former bedroom into a home office. And when Clemence doesn’t get her way, look out: People will be the target of her wrath.

Soon after Clemence moves back into the family home, Clemence and Sherri are seen in an appointment with a psychiatrist named Dr. Lismoen (played by Waltrudis Buck), who has diagnosed Clemence with having bipolar disorder. Clemence has exhibited bipolar symptoms of hoarding, stealing, paranoia and extreme insomnia. Dr. Lismoen is empathetic but firm in how Clemence should proceed with taking medication to treat the bipolar disorder.

The doctor says that it might take a lot of time to find the right medication “cocktail” that works best for Clemence. Dr. Lismoen also warns that some of the medication side effects will be uncomfortable. It’s news that Clemence doesn’t want to hear, so she thinks the doctor is incompetent. Dr. Lismoen also tells Clemence that Clemence should see a therapist, so Clemence isn’t happy about that either.

Here’s an example of what a horrible person Clemence is: In the waiting room of Dr. Lismoen’s office, Clemence and Sherri are sitting near an obviously upset woman (played by Sarah Schol), who is sobbing about something. Clemence and Sherri have no idea who this woman is or what this woman’s personal problems are. When Clemence and her mother are called into Dr. Lismoen’s office, Clemence passes by the distressed woman and snarls at her: “Basket case.” (It’s a derogatory slur for a mentally ill person.)

And later, when Clemence has her first session with her therapist Dr. Madzen (played by Jon Hudson Odom), she has this to say about Dr. Lismoen, who is a German immigrant: “I call her ‘the German woman,’ to take away her power.” Clemence adds, “I don’t take life advice from mentally ill burnouts.” None of this is funny, of course, but “The Year Between” filmmaker Heller desperately wants it to be.

At home, Clemence complains and gives constant criticism to her family members for not being more accommodating to her. Sherri and her mild-mannered husband Don (played by Steve Buscemi) are admittedly unsure of how to deal with Clemence’s bipolar disorder. Don’s reaction is just to let Clemence mouth off and not try to get into any arguments with her. Sherri’s way of coping is ordering Clemence to do yoga with her.

Clemence’s younger sister Carlin (played by Emily Robinson), who’s 17 or 18 years old, is an overachiever in her last year of high school. Carlin is preoccupied with finding out if she will get into her top-choice university. Meanwhile, a jealous Clemence tries to discourage Carlin from going to college. Carlin and Clemence are opposites in a lot of ways, so Carlin is the person in the family whom Clemence clashes with the most.

Clemence’s younger brother Neil (played by Wyatt Oleff), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, has an easygoing personality and tries to stay out of Clemence’s way. When Clemence unapologetically eats all of the bread in the house refrigerator, and someone in the family gripes about it, Clemence angrily reacts as if her rights are being violated. And so, when Neil later wants to make a meat sandwich, he just eats the meat by itself instead of trying to get into what would be an emotionally exhausting confrontation with Clemence.

Clemence also manipulates her family by making alarming suicidal comments. She mopes around the house and sleeps a lot, which are all valid signs of depression. But then she says to her father Don: “Dad, if the house burns down, I want to sleep through it.” How is a parent supposed to react when hearing this disturbing comment from a child? “The Year Between” reprehensibly treats it like a joke.

Believe it or not, Clemence is capable of being nice. There’s a brief scene early in the movie where she’s walking the family dog Chauncey outside on a street, and Clemence says a polite hello to a neighbor. But that display of friendliness is short-lived and rare for Clemence.

As an example of how she still has bipolar episodes, there’s a scene in the movie where Clemence walks the dog but doesn’t come back until several hours later when it’s night, without telling anyone in her family where she was and that she was taking the dog away for hours. When she comes back home, with no explanation for her long absence, Clemence is dismissive of her mother’s worried feelings. Clemence is legally an adult, so she shouldn’t have to be treated like a child, but she often acts like a petulant child.

What’s so horrific about “The Year Between” is that it constantly makes a point that people shouldn’t really confront Clemence about her cruelty and selfishness because she has bipolar disorder. Clemence wants people to respect her, but she’s not willing show basic respect for other people. And her disrespect is not something that can be blamed on Clemence’s bipolar disorder, but the movie wants to make it look like her bipolar disorder is largely to blame.

Not long after moving back in with her parents, Clemence commits what she thinks is an act of rebellion: She shaves off all of the hair on her head. And so, for the rest of the movie, Clemence has “chip on her shoulder” reactions if people look at her strangely because of her bald head. When some teenage boys pass her on a street, she doesn’t like the way they’re looking at her, so she blurts out to them, “I eat ass!” This is what’s supposed to be pass as “comedy” in “The Year Between.”

Clemence isn’t a complete freeloader at home because she attempts to find a job. She applies to be a sales clerk at a discount clothing/furniture store called Big Deals, even though her people skills are horrible, she has no retail sales experience, and she’s very abrasive in her job interview. But lo and behold, she easily gets the job. It’s just more of Clemence’s privilege on display.

The Big Deals employee who’s been assigned to train Clemence is a sassy and intelligent woman in her late teens named Beth (played by Kyanna Simone), who tells Clemence that she will be quitting this dead-end retail job in the near future because Beth has a lacrosse scholarship to attend Duke University. Clemence is already annoyed that she’s being trained by someone who’s younger than Clemence. And when Clemence hears that Beth has plans to go to college, Clemence gets envious of Beth.

Still, Clemence has no friends, so she tries to become Beth’s friend. It won’t make Clemence look any less loathsome, because Clemence’s idea of a “friend” is to have someone listen to her rant about how much other people ignore or misunderstand Clemence. However, the scenes with Clemence and Beth are among the movie’s few highlights.

What doesn’t work as well is the movie’s subplot about Clemence’s love life. In a convenience store parking lot, she sees a guy named Ashik (played by Rajeev Jacob), who was a classmate in high school. Ashik and Clemence haven’t seen each other since their high school days.

Clemence and Ashik make awkward small talk and catch up on what they’ve been doing with their lives. After they exchange phone numbers, they flirt online and take tentative steps toward dating. Ashik is also drifting in life and lives at home with his mother. Unfortunately, Ashik is a hollow character with not much to offer to this movie, so the would-be romance between Ashik and Clemence falls flat.

“The Year Between,” just like Clemence, is very irritable, monotonous and aimless. It seems like the movie was made to create sympathy for whatever real-life misdeeds that might have inspired the awfulness of Clemence. Viewers won’t be entirely sure how much of the real Heller is in Clemence, but what’s shown in the movie is someone with a very heinous personality.

As for her bipolar disorder, Clemence doesn’t seem concerned about getting better. She just wants to wallow in her misery. And when someone else in the family has a major health problem, Clemence reaches new lows of despicable narcissism. Any attempts to redeem Clemence look very fake. Viewers will be left wondering why “The Year Between” was even made, when there’s really no point to the movie, except to show someone being chronically self-centered and emotionally abusive to others, with no maturity or self-awareness.

UPDATE: Gravitas Ventures will release “The Year Between” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on March 3, 2023. Peacock will premiere the movie on May 1, 2023.

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