FFF Review: PUTZEL

The debut feature from director Jason Chaet, Putzel, opens with narration about a popular fish store/deli called Himmelstein's in Manhattan's Upper West Side and shows us an animated map of said area. It's the part of New York that Walter (Jack Carpenter) grew up in and can't seem to leave--literally. It's as much of a prison as it is a home.

Walter is rather (un-)affectionately nicknamed Putzel. I don't need to tell you why, other than if you think about it more than two seconds, you'll get it. He's the heir-apparent to Himmelstein's, though apparently his Uncle Sid (John Pankow) has other plans, namely selling the store and using the money to move with his wife to Arizona. Getting the store has been Walter's lifelong goal. Sid knows though that without any money, it will take Walter a lifetime to achieve it.

A wrench, as it often does, gets thrown into the proceedings; that wrench, as it often is, comes in the form of a woman. Sally (Melanie Lynskey) is a periodic resident of Manhattan and is back in town when she walks into the store, disrupting Sid and Walter's world. Sid--in full on balding, midlife crisis mode--decides to make a move on Sally. For some reason, Sally responds positively to this. But their relationship--if we can call it that--is so tame and unconsummated that one may wonder what's in it for either of them.

What's not in it for Walter is very simple however: as long as Sally is in Sid's life, he has a reason to stay and keep running the store. And as Walter becomes determined to break up Sid and Sally, of course he himself begins to fall for her.

If the story and characters feel a little too familiar, it's because they are. Putzel embodies a particular strain of independent movies often seen at festivals like these: the young and awkward man-boy is brought out of his shell by the more worldly woman. She brings him happiness while he, presumably, gives her stability and, frankly, a more reputable social status. It would ultimately give nothing away to suggest that Putzel's inability leave the Upper West Side eventually lies in the power of Sally's presence.

Sally herself really feels as if she should be in a different movie and Lynskey plays her with a naturalism that doesn't seem to quite fit with the increasingly unnatural people inhabiting Walter's world. Even Sally's only friend, the bar owner who lets her hole up in the cellar when she's temporarily back in town, is an oddball more likely to be seen in a horror movie (or, really, a spoof of a horror movie). I wonder how a good a movie could have been made if we saw things more from Sally's point of view--why she lives under such meager circumstances, why she would entertain the advanced of Sid, why she finds Walter so appealing--instead of Walter's.

For all its flaws though, Putzel isn't an unentertaining movie and Carpenter's lead performance has enough charm to overcome a good majority of its over-familiarity while Lynskey's Sally is the real heart of the film. It's also in parts quite funny, including a genuinely hilarious scene between the two on a park bench that begins humorously then turns kind of touching. It's one of those films you might catch late at night on cable and remember you kind of liked it. But once you turn off the TV, you'll likely forget it again.