Country: USA
Movie Review: Messy family relationships filled with accusations, squabbles, and remorse, are depicted in “Cold Turkey” without presenting anything outstanding or different from other dramas of the same type. Heavy-drinker-bourgeois patriarch Poppy and his second wife Deborah are receiving their son Jacob along with his two half-sisters, Lindsay and Nina, for the Thanksgiving and Christmas. At first, all the attentions were centered in Nina, absent for 15 years and showing to be the most eccentric and frontal of the family. After some tense moments (some good, some bad) around the dinner table regarding stupid events from the past, the three children, one at a time, approach their father to ask for money. Nothing we weren’t expecting, but a surprise will be disclosed and the family won’t be the same anymore. Will be the changes for better or for worse? Slocombe’s direction didn’t pull any magical trick in a plot whose principal issues were lack of originality and imagination, a forced cynicism, and unavailability to develop a bit more its characters. Famous actor/director Peter Bogdanovich (“The Last Picture Show”, “Paper Moon”) has a great performance but unfortunately the rest of the cast was incapable of following him in creating a peculiar mood that was the only reason for me to keep on watching this film. Planned to be released in the festive season that is approaching, “Cold Turkey” showed to be a very cold and often banal plate for me to enjoy it totally.
