About Alex

About Alex

Although it is expected of critique to start each movie with a blank state, “About Alex,” the new dramedy featuring some talented TV stars Aubrey Plaza (“Parks and Recreation”), Max Greenfield (“New Girl”), Jane Levy (“Suburgatory”) and Jason Ritter (“Parenthood”) was an exception. I have something to confess: I’m sick of quarter-life crisis variations on “The Big Chill.” They come out about every other month movies in which friends are brought together by some central event (usually a death or suicide), air their skeletons while smoking a few joints and dancing around a cabin in the woods.

This subgenre has run out of whatever creative juice it once had, too often forcing great actors to go through overly scripted motions. So I was taken aback by much of “About Alex,” which has a stronger-than-usual ensemble for this kind of movie even though it falls into predictable, traditional turns of Screenwriting 101 far too often. When the better members of the cast are allowed to let their characters breathe and exist outside of their clichés, “About Alex” has the kind of energy that reminds one even this cynical critic why writers and directors keep coming back to this tale.

Alex (Jason Ritter) has tried to kill himself, although he made sure not to actually finish the job. A montage in which his friends get “the call” that Alex tried to check out introduces us to his former college buddies who have since been separated by miles and time. His old BFFs rally around him for a weekend to get over the hump, tie up some loose ends among their group’s dynamic and shake off emotional bombshells like finding out someone you love tried to die.

Ben (Nate Parker) is Alex’s closest friend; he’s also a novelist suffering from crippling writer’s block as he tries to figure out what comes next. Ben is rocked by the suicide attempt because he didn’t return Alex’s calls in the days leading up to it and thus blames himself. He wasn’t there when a friend reached out his hand. Siri (Maggie Grace) is another of Alex’s friends, and she also happens to be Ben’s partner; she’s late, as they say (not as in “for dinner,” but as in “with child”). How will Ben take it when he learns Siri is pregnant?

Josh (Max Greenfield) is this group member: the aggressive one who wants to confront Alex with a WTF style of grief management that gets to why he tried to kill himself; Sarah (Aubrey Plaza) is more concerned than confrontational; she hooks up with Josh every now and then but has a crush on Isaac (Max Minghella), this crew’s most Yuppie member he may have even voted for Bush. Adding stress to this already stressful situation, Isaac brings his relatively new girlfriend Kate (Jane Levy) along for the reunion/intervention. You can imagine how well that goes.

Sort of. What is kind of refreshing in “About Alex” is that it doesn’t exactly follow the predictable map through the cliches of this subgenre that appears to be charted in its opening scenes. Which secrets will be revealed is crystal clear, but how they’re brought to surface and dealt with is often done around character rather than cliche.

Levy’s Kate isn’t just the “other woman,” partly because she’s played by an actress who’s been evolving interestingly with every role, most recently as the star of “Evil Dead.” Jason Ritter finds a kind emotional undercurrent that often goes missing from these troubled characters; there’s something about the way his voice quivers that makes his depression feel realer. There are a couple performances here that work less well than others (young Jesse Zwick writes more honestly for the men Max Minghella, Nate Parker than their female counterparts; both Maggie Grace and Aubrey Plaza feel underwritten).

But when Zwick lets his people breathe, “About Alex” comes alive as true. The setup may be overwritten and the climax definitely so, but what lies between has a purity of character too seldom seen in a genre where I usually wish there were more scenes of friendly interaction and fewer contrivances. I hope he trusts his cast enough next time around to give them less plot and more hang-out; meanwhile, there’s plenty to look forward to already. And maybe even reason enough for me not to dread the next 20something “Big Chill” quite so much?

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