Any day of the week, social media users are bombarded with posts and articles blaming either millennials or baby boomers for all of the world’s problems. Typically, the arguments revolve around millennials being avocado toast-eating brats while careless baby boomers have brought on the destruction of our earth and economy. There is no doubt this constant barrage instills great anger and frustration in people, which is the theme Tone-Deaf takes on.
Written and directed by Richard Bates Jr. (Excision), Tone-Deaf stars Amanda Crew (Silicon Valley) as the cliché millennial Olive and Robert Patrick (True Blood) as Harvey, the angry baby boomer. After a messy break-up and losing her job, Olive is in need of a quiet, peaceful weekend away from the city. She finds a large country house to rent, owned by Harvey. After she reaches out about the property, he searches her name and finds a picture of Olive holding a “this pussy grabs back” sign and decides she’s the one. Harvey is a widower who has signs of dementia, which results in a psychotic break that focuses on his hate and anger for all things hipster and Gen Y. Olive becomes his target, with other casualties along the way. By the end, you cannot help but see how annoyingly self-righteous both sides of the equation truly are.
The plot brings about quite a bit of dark humor, with Harvey breaking the fourth wall to rant at the audience being an absolute highlight. As an actor, Robert Patrick always brings his A-game, and Tone-Deaf is no exception. The film benefited greatly from Patrick’s high-caliber performance, wit, and natural charm. Richard Bates Jr. again shows us his exaggerated and edgy style of directing, while Amanda Crew makes us walk the line between loathing her typical millennial ways and feeling sympathetic for events that occurred in her past. There is also an excellent cameo from Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), a man who can’t help but light up the any screen he is on. However, there were some unfortunate missteps.
While Harvey is clearly having a homicidal mental breakdown, some of his actions are still bizarre and nonsensical, with the reasoning behind his murderous actions getting a bit convoluted. Some characters seem to also be in denial about how serious the situation was, which resulted in silly decision-making you can’t help but scratch your head over. Unfortunately, some of the character development just didn’t do the film any favors. Despite these issues, the witty script and solid performances still makes Tone-Deaf an entertaining watch.
Following its world premiere at the 2019 South by Southwest Conference and Festivals (SXSW), Tone-Deaf was picked up by Saban Films and will open in select theaters on August 23, 2019.
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