Tone-Deaf movie review & film summary (2019)
Writer/director Richard Bates Jr. (“Excision,” “Trash Fire”) exhaustingly panders to Millennial viewers by making Patrick’s grumpy, fourth-wall-breaking coot spew third-hand received notions about Millennials, like how “life is all about hard work and sacrifice” and only Boomers see “the big picture” while hoity-toity Millennials are riding their “climate change high horses,” but are really a bunch of “brunchin’ bimbos, with your skinny margaritas.” Patrick delivers these puling asides with enough venom, but his dialogue only proves how desperate Bates is to bait viewers into rooting for Olive, like when he grumbles that he only wants to murder her for ideological reasons: "It's nothing personal; it's not you, it's just everything you represent.” At last, a satire that’s as shallow as our current political moment.
Harvey and Olive are equally uninteresting, even if her self-awareness supposedly makes her more sympathetic. Still, Olive’s at least partly defined by her obnoxious accessories: thick, black plastic frames on her eyeglasses; a jersey-style long-sleeve shirt that announces “the struggle is real”; and a personal soundtrack that features an Awkwafina song about how her “vag” is “effortless” while “your vag posts ads on Craigslist.” I guess irony really is the shackle of youth.
Olive also struggles to connect with her estranged mom Crystal (Kim Delaney), a sassy hippie who demands (and receives) oral sex from a spacey younger man named Uriah (Johnny Pemberton). Crystal is the star of one of the only memorable scenes in “Tone-Deaf;” she texts a saucy winky-face emoji to her daughter while she’s doing the mess around with Uriah. This tossed-off joke is unusually funny, possibly because it’s not a product of tired generation gap or Red state/Blue state shtick, like when Olive’s BFF Lenore (Hayley Marie Norman) encourages her to “wear her Coastal elitism with pride” or when Harvey’s blinkered family friend Agnes (Nancy Linehan Charles) tells Harvey—just before he ties her up and attacks her—that “the good old days” “[weren’t] so good for the rest of us.”
Bates takes his time in setting up easy targets for his actors to knock down. Crew stands out among the movie’s strong ensemble cast since she brings the most range to her otherwise one-note character. Crew’s performance occasionally reminded me of Alicia Silverstone in “Clueless” as smarter-than-she-sounds valley girl Cher, especially when Olive turns an anxious prayer into a one-sided guilt trip: "And plus, also, don't forget: You gave me my dad the chemical imbalance which caused him to commit suicide.” Crew also earns belly laughs when she interrupts Harvey’s rambling about “f—kin’ Millennials” with "So ... backtracking ... for just a moment ... um … ”
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