This weekend, I watched Igby Goes Down for maybe the third time. The friend who watched it with me did not enjoy it so we had a discussion that forced me to elucidate my top ten reasons why it’s one of my favorite movies. Here they are!
1-7. Its crushable ensemble cast. Kieran Culkin, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, Ryan Phillippe, Claire Danes, Bill Pullman, and even Amanda Peet—I mean, dude.
8. Its emotional resonance. Troubled dropout Igby is beset by narcissists on all sides. The ostensibly stable, normal people who offer him help—a girlfriend, a father figure, a brother—betray him while continuing to tell themselves that they have his best interests at heart. Not to take this to an emo/livejournal place, but I think this is a problem for a lot of vulnerable people who are forced to rely on others. For instance, animals in zoos.
9. Its soundtrack, which contains a lot of songs I vaguely remember from high school mixtapes/radio. (Also, remember when Coldplay was “indie”? Lol 2002.)
10. Its place in time. Cultural artifacts from the early 2000s are still too recent to be commodified as popular nostalgia objects à la I Love The Nineties, but they are old enough that my familiarity with them makes me feel pleasantly mature. When I watch Igby Goes Down, it’s like soaking in a hot tub of affirmation. This is how I imagined my childhood babysitters felt about pop culture references to Heathers, the Gulf War, and Kurt Cobain.
