Writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man chronicles the increasingly anxious dilemma of Mikey (Matt Boren), a young husband and father who stops off at his parents’ loft during a business trip to New York and finds himself emotionally unable to leave.
Unsure of his own motivations, he makes up excuses about why he is staying–his flight is delayed; his flight is canceled–but while his doting mother (Flo Jacobs, the directors mother) is more than happy to enable his procrastination, his father (Azazel’s father, venerable avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs) grows suspicious of his sons change of plans.
Ignoring their concern, Mikey moves back into his old room. He immerses himself in childhood memorabilia, dodges his wifes panicked voicemails, and even attempts to resurrect old neighborhood buddies (at least one as hair-raisingly adrift as he). And as the days go on, Mikey becomes more and more entrenched in his adolescent sanctuary. But as his life builds to a darkly comic pitch reminiscent of Jacobs fellow downtown auteur Jim Jarmusch, this young father realizes that he must choose between life as it is and life as it was.
A tribute to Jacobs parents and their work as much as to the (lost) New York of his childhood, “Momma’s Man” is an acutely perceptive, deeply personal take on a universal experience: the fear of growing up.
“Momma’s Man” represents a reteaming of producers Alex Orlovsky, Hunter Gray and executive producer Paul Mezey who collaborated on 2006’s acclaimed Half Nelson, which earned a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Ryan Gosling.
Director Azazel Jacobs’ previous feature, “The GoodTimesKid,” and short films have played various international film festivals and will be featured in a weeklong retrospective at Brooklyn’s BAM Rose Cinemas August 10-15.
Running Time: 94 Minutes
The film is not rated.