“Window Theory” Directed by Andrew
Putschoegl Wingman Productions Inc.
“Window Theory” might seem like every Westwood
apartment party you’ve ever been to. But there’s a
reason for that. Produced by UCLA alumnus Alan Pao, “Window
Theory” begins as a story of alcohol and sex in Los Angeles.
Ethan Humphries (Corey Large) is a 25-year-old bachelor living in
the city. He is fundamentally immature, replaying his high school
experience of getting drunk and sleeping around ““ and for
some reason, with clubbing buddy Ron Jeremy. Ethan lacks direction
in life until he hears secondhand that his best friend Jeff (Luke
Flynn) is getting married in a week. Ethan, upset at being left out
of the loop, immediately heads home to Vancouver. Upon arriving, he
meets up with old friends Sean (Tom Lenk), a seventh-year
psychology student, and Brad (Luke Kirby), a disgruntled medical
student, and promptly resumes his typical behavior. After a few
nights of getting drunk and passing out in strange places, like
outside his old high school, Ethan finds out why he wasn’t
told about Jeff’s wedding: The bride is Ethan’s old
flame Stephanie (Jennifer O’Dell), inciting some serious
soul-searching for Ethan ““ why can’t he sustain a
meaningful relationship like Jeff and Stephanie’s? As Ethan
tries to find the answer to that question, the central problem of
“Window Theory” arises: The audience is not really
emotionally invested in the outcome. Most of the characters are
underdeveloped, which basically turns them into caricatures of the
mid-20s psyche. We find them reacting the same way to every
situation. Stephanie accepts all of Ethan’s bad behavior, for
example, while Ethan’s solution to everything is to get
plastered, even after he supposedly changes. This is not helped by
wooden performances and a script characterized by uninteresting
dialogue that distills conversation into something dull and
forgettable. The bright spots in “Window Theory”
unfortunately are absent from most of the film’s second half.
The characters of Brad and especially Sean (imagine Frodo Baggins
living in his parents’ basement, smoking pot, listening to
Bright Eyes and struggling with his persisting virginity) give us
reason to laugh and care, if only they were more central to the
story instead of being Ethan’s beer repositories. By the time
Ethan lays out his half-baked “window theory,” which
describes the appropriate age a woman should be to become a
long-term girlfriend (and taking into account the appearance of
most of the female characters in the film, there might have been
something in there about being a blonde D-cup also), the
viewer’s mind has left British Columbia. The film is simply
not funny, novel or revelatory enough to sustain our attention.
Walking the fine line between outright comedy and coming-of-age
story, the film fails to fall into one category or even balance
between the two. But maybe this specific type of story cannot be
told like “Window Theory” tells it. Without a setting
inherently conducive to humor (like high school in “American
Pie”), a strong central character backed by a strong
performance (like Ryan Reynolds in “Van Wilder”) or a
backdrop of large-scale life questions (like all of
“Sideways”), “Window Theory” does not match
up, in humor or emotional depth, to other tales of male
indirection. Like Ethan himself, the film doesn’t know where
it wants to go, but also like Ethan, it doesn’t make us very
interested in its eventual destination. -Nick Rudman