BRAD’S STATUS

BRAD’S STATUS depicts the mid-life crisis of a self-absorbed man named Brad as he takes his teenage son on a college scouting trip to Boston and dwells on comparing himself to his wealthier friends from his own college days while considering his son’s future. Writer/Director Mike White places the movie’s focus squarely on Ben Stiller as Brad, with most of the movie consisting of his interior monologues complaining about his average life. However, Brad and the old friends he envies are so miserable and annoying that few will want to spend any time with them.

The movie’s threadbare story follows Stiller’s Brad over the course of a weekend trip from his Sacramento home to Boston with his teenage son Troy (Austin Abrams) as they visit Harvard and Brad’s alma mater Tufts University for campus tours and admission interviews. Brad is first seen tossing and turning in his sleep. He asks himself how his life turned out the way it has. Then, he asks his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) if they are likely to inherit her wealthy parents’ expensive home in the hopes that it would be their backup plan for a cushy retirement.

Brad heads his own non-profit business while Melanie has a secure government job. This gives them a solid upper-middle-class life, but he’s obsessed with the fact that several of his college friends have gone on to vast success in high-profile industries. Jason (Luke Wilson) is head of a hedge fund, while Billy (Jemaine Clement) has sold his tech company and retired to a life of debauchery on an island. Finally, Nick (played by the writer/director) is a hotshot filmmaker.

While those three friends are mostly seen in Brad’s jealous imaginings, Brad forces a reunion with his friend Craig (Michael Sheen), who’s become a prominent TV pundit and author and has the connections to help Troy get special attention at Harvard. The tension behind that meeting and Brad’s encounters with Troy’s young idealistic friends force Brad into some serious reckonings about the state of his own life.

BRAD’S STATUS revolves so much around Brad’s impressions and ideas of what his old friends’ lives are like that viewers are shown almost nothing of their actual realities. Brad barely connects with any of his old friends other than Craig. Regrettably, this gives viewers little empathy.

Stiller does a solid job as Brad, conveying the well of emotions that are bottled up inside of him, but his incessant whining is largely unappealing. Abrams as Brad’s son has the most genuine interactions with Brad, but he’s not called upon to show much range other than being a nice kid who’s increasingly worried by his dad’s obvious sadness.

The intense jealousy and bitterness Brad harbors toward his friends, who have succeeded in big-money fields while he opted to create a non-profit, reflect a strong anti-capitalist viewpoint. The movie also shows a pro-homosexual side in a few brief scenes of Brad’s old friend Nick hosting all-male pool parties and kissing his male “partner” after making his vows at their wedding. Another character comments on Nick’s heavy-partying lifestyle, while the fact that Billy is living with two women at once in a threesome relationship is both mentioned and implied as he runs along the beach with them a couple of times. Brad in one scene also fantasizes briefly about living like Billy rather than being married, but this fantasy is intended for comical effect rather than any salacious reason.

BRAD’S STATUS does have a few positive aspects. For example, Brad is shown to be a caring husband and father despite his personal malaise. Also, a friend of Troy’s tries to impress upon Brad the fact that there are people with far greater problems in poor parts of the world. Thus, the movie shows that Brad is misguided in his bitterness, even if he doesn’t realize it most of the time. Finally, Brad’s wife and son are also shown as loving and devoted toward Brad and each other, a too-rare depiction of a stable nuclear family by Hollywood.

Due to the movie having numerous obscenities scattered throughout and the brief depictions of the hedonistic lifestyles of Brad’s friends, BRAD’S STATUS is excessive.