Review: 'Igby Goes Down' a big up

Ear for dialogue, eye for acting mark film debut

(CNN) -- How's this for a rave: "Igby Goes Down" is the best coming-of-age film since "The Graduate."

Writer/director Burr Steers, in his feature film debut, has created a brilliant motion picture. And Kieran Culkin, who plays the Igby of the title, becomes a bona fide star with his role -- but more important, much more important, Culkin has emerged as an actor with great depth and sensitivity.

Set in the rarefied world of Manhattan's Upper East Side, where wealth is a given and privilege is considered a birthright, "Igby" has the feeling of complete authenticity. This is not surprising since Steers, the nephew of Gore Vidal, grew up in that milieu and knows it intimately.

The film grabs you instantly, beginning with Mimi Slocumb (Susan Sarandon) gasping for her last breath. Her two sons, Oliver (Ryan Phillippe) and Igby, look on while perched upon what will soon be her deathbed. As the opening credits begin to roll, we see a series of vignettes which flash back in time and draw us into the characters, and their relationships to one another. It's only a couple minutes, but it's more compelling than most films can muster in two hours.

The Slocumb family, we soon learn, is a classic study in emotional avoidance, self-absorption, and the fine art of keeping up appearances. The patriarch of the family, Jason (Bill Pullman), has taken a long, slow and sad slide into schizophrenia due perhaps to years of inbreeding and a failure to live up to his peers, and his wife's, expectations. His wife, Mimi, is cold, distant, rigid and has a long-term dependency on speed, which she refers to as her "peppies."

She also has the nurturing skills of a barracuda. Oliver, the eldest, knows the score about his family and the vapidness of his social scene. But rather than rebel against it all, he uses it to his advantage. He, like his mother, is cold, unattached and values money and appearances over human contact and sincere emotion.

Banes of his existence

RESOURCES EW.COM: 'Igby Goes Down' gets an A      MORE REVIEWS One Hour Photo Simone Blue Crush Possession XXX Signs Goldmember Road to Perdition Men in Black II Mr. Deeds Altar Boys Minority Report Bourne Identity Windtalkers Ya-Ya Sisterhood Bad Company Undercover Brother Sum of All Fears Enough Insomnia Star Wars New Guy Unfaithful The Salton Sea Life or Something... Murder by Numbers Cat's Meow Human Nature Changing Lanes High Crimes Big Trouble Panic Room Blade II Ice Age Showtime Time Machine We Were Soldiers Queen of the Damned Dragonfly Iris John Q Big Fat Liar Collateral Damage Monster's Ball Slackers Birthday Girl Monte Cristo Mothman Orange County Charlotte Gray I Am Sam Gosford Park Black Hawk Down Ali Kate & Leopold Shipping News Jimmy Neutron Joe Somebody Beautiful Mind The Majestic The Lord of the Rings Lantana Royal Tenenbaums Vanilla Sky No Man's Land Affair of the Necklace Enemy Lines In the Bedroom Spy Game Sidewalks Harry Potter Shallow Hal Man Who Wasn't There Heist Amelie Focus Domestic Disturbance Tape Monsters, Inc. Life As A House My First Mister K-Pax From Hell Riding in Cars Last Castle Mulholland Drive Bandits Serendipity Joy Ride Training Day Don't Say a Word Zoolander Hearts in Atlantis Glitter Liam The Glass House Hardball The Musketeer Rock Star O Bubble Boy Jade Scorpion Corelli's Mandolin Apocalypse Redux... American Pie 2 The Others Osmosis Jones Ghost World Rush Hour 2 Jackpot Planet of the Apes America's Sweethearts Jurassic Park III Legally Blonde The Score SongCatcher Cats and Dogs Scary Movie 2 crazy/beautiful A.I. The Fast & the Furious Dr. Dolittle 2 Atlantis Tomb Raider Swordfish Evolution What's the Worst...? Pearl Harbor Angel Eyes Shrek Calle 54 A Knight's Tale Mummy Returns About Adam One Night at McCool's Town and Country The Claim Freddy Got Fingered Bridget Jones's Diary Joe Dirt Along Came a Spider Blow Tailor of Panama Someone Like You Heartbreakers Say It Isn't So Enemy at the Gates The Dish Blow Dry 15 Minutes Caveman's Valentine The Mexican 3000 mi. to Graceland Monkeybone Sweet November Hannibal Shadow of the Vampire The Gift Snatch Chunhyang Finding Forrester O Brother, Where ... Thirteen Days Before Night Falls Vatel The House of Mirth Traffic Malena     EW.COM REVIEWS ABC Africa About a Boy Bad Company Baran Bartleby The Believer Big Trouble The Bourne Identity The Cat's Meow Changing Lanes Chelsea Walls Cherish The Director's Cut CQ Crush The Dangerous Lives    of Altar Boys Deuces Wild Ya-Ya Sisterhood Z-Boys Enough Frailty Elling The Emperor's New    Clothes Enigma The Fast Runner Ganster No. 1 High Crimes Hollywood Ending Home Movie Human Nature The Importance of    Being Earnest Insomnia Jason X Joshua The Komediant Les Destinees The Lady and the Duke Lagaan Late Marriage Life or Something    Like It Lucky Break Mama Africa Murder By Numbers My Big Fat Greek    Wedding The Mystic Masseur National Lampoon's    Van Wilder New Best Friend The New Guy Nine Queens The Other Side of    Heaven Rain Sade The Salton Sea The Scorpion King Some Body Spider-Man Spirit Star Wars: Episode II The Sum of All Fears The Sweetest Thing Thirteen Conversations    About One Thing Time Out Triumph of Love Undercover Brother Unfaithful Vulgar Warm Water Under    a Red Bridge Windtalkers World Traveler 40 Days and 40 Nights All About the    Benjamins Big Bad Love Big Fat Liar Birthday Girl Blade II Borstal Boy Clockstoppers Collateral Damage Crossroads Death to Smoochy Domestic Violence Dragonfly E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Harrison's Flowers Hart'fs War How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog Ice Age Jim Brown:All-American John Q Kissing Jessica Stein Last Orders Mean Machine Monsoon Wedding No Such Thing Panic Room The Piano Teacher Promises Queen of the Damned Resident Evil Return to Never Land The Rookie Rollerball A Rumor of Angels Scotland, PA Showtime Son of the Bride The Son's Room Sorority Boys Stolen Summer Storytelling Super Troopers The Time Machine Trouble Every Day We Were Soldiers Wendigo What Time Is It There? Y Tu Mama Tambien

Orbiting around this house of horrors is D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum), Igby's godfather and sometime benefactor.

He, unlike the Slocumbs, was not to the manor born. When he finally does obtain huge wealth, he plunges gleefully into the emptiness of materialism that the Slocumbs have always taken for granted. In some ways, he's the most destructive person in the group, since he actually pretends to care about people and feigns selfless motives. In reality he's a complete cad who keeps his mistress Rachel (Amanda Peet) on the side, and uses money to control everyone in his life.

It's no wonder Igby is afraid of being pulled down into this empty vortex, hence the title of the film. Bouncing from one private school to the next and getting expelled from one after another, Igby is finally thrust by Mimi into a military academy in the Midwest. Smart enough to play the game, Igby bides his time, and during a Christmas vacation back in New York, he runs away.

Igby may not know what he wants, but he absolutely knows what he doesn't want: anything to do with his family or their narrow vision and prefabricated expectations of what his life should be. With the help of Rachel, he hides out at his godfather's downtown loft. There he's drawn into a world totally different from anything he's ever experienced before -- including a tentative relationship with an older college woman, Sookie, played by Claire Danes.

Perfectly cast, perfectly written

Amanda Peet and Kieran Culkin both give terrific performances in "Igby Goes Down."

But his sublimely sarcastic humor is still intact. Steers' brilliant dialogue is like honey on Culkin's lips. On his godfather: "I love the fact that the captain of the morality team, Mr. All-American, invites his chick to same party as his wife." Explaining Rachel to Sookie: "She's a dancer who doesn't dance, and her best friend is a painter who doesn't paint. It's like a boho version of 'Island of the Lost Toys.' "

"Igby Goes Down" is without doubt one of the best films this year. Every part is perfectly cast -- Sarandon is one of the best actresses on earth -- and Steers has an uncanny ear for the spoken word. His dialogue is crisp, intelligent and acute, without sounding canned. (It's interesting that two of his previous jobs were roles in Quentin Tarantino films -- including one of the college-age guys Samuel L. Jackson terrorizes in "Pulp Fiction.")

He also knows his subject matter very well. While this is not an autobiographical film, he does know the landscape of the Manhattan Gold Coast social scene.

The bottom line is, "Igby Goes Down" works -- all the way around. We should all look forward to Burr Steers' next project, and Kieran Culkin's next performance.

"Igby Goes Down," rated R, opens in limited release in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and then will open wider across the country in later weeks. Check your local listings.