Review: "Other People"
By Chris Feil
You may think you have seen films like this year's Sundance competitor Other People, what with its dark humor and disease-based family melodrama (and maybe more than a few coming from Sundance itself). Jesse Plemons stars as David, a struggling comedy writer returning home from New York to care for his mother Joanne (Molly Shannon, at her most natural) as she fights a losing battle against nerve cancer. David's relationship with his family is stunted by lingering tensions from his coming out, especially with his father (Bradley Whitford).
The parent-child dynamics and cancer plotline are certainly some of the more familiar aspects of the film, but underneath is a more unique study on on suburban stifling of queerness.