Landline (2017)

Jack and I loved this ensemble dramedy about a dysfunctional Manhattan family dealing with repressed anger and infidelity. Set in 1995, it features many telephones, including functioning pay phones, and an important corded princess phone.

Jenny Slate (last blogged for Gifted) plays Dana, the elder daughter living with her fiancé, as funny, wild, and impulsive but still more mature than her funnier, reckless teenage sister Ali, played by Abby Quinn (new to me, she's been in two movies and one episode of Law & Order SVU, and is also a songwriter and singer--here's a taste--she sings in the movie, too). Along with Edie Falco (best known for 86 episodes of The Sopranos and 80 of Nurse Jackie, she was also in four of 30 Rock and the movie Sunshine State (2002), among her many credits), the women are strong. They are ably supported by John Turturro (most recently in these pages for Fading Gigolo) as the father, Jay Duplass (last in Beatriz at Dinner) as the fiancé, and Finn Wittrock (four episodes of Masters of Sex, one of the tech guys in The Big Short, a small part in La La Land, and more) as Dana's college friend, to name a few.

This is director/co-writer Gillian (pronounced with a hard G, like girl) Robespierre's and co-writer Elisabeth Holm's second feature after Obvious Child, which also starred Slate. Tom Bean (new to me) co-wrote the story with them. Both movies were Sundance hits. The script is snappy, with some of the funniest lines delivered by snarky sister Ali. Robespierre and Holm came of age in the 90s and there are many other "period" details besides the phones, such as lots of cigarette smoking, monochrome computer screens, floppy disks, and a dot matrix printer.

Three composers, Chris Bordeaux (who scored Obvious Child), Jordan Cohen, and Clyde Lawrence (they didn't), are credited but what you will remember are the 1990s songs. That being said, I can't remember them all and have spent a lot of time on google looking for a track list, with no success, finding only the following. Steve Winwood's Higher Love (from 1986) and a song by 10,000 Maniacs are the only ones I definitely remember. Four songs by Alexander McCabe are listed on imdb and three are available to stream: Scarsdale, Swayin', and Shakin'. Stacey Q’s Two of Hearts, also a 1986 hit, was mentioned in a review, as well as artists PJ Harvey, The Breeders, and Pavement. The only playlist I could find is one compiled by Slate called "Landline: 90s Jams with Jenny" on Amazon Prime music, but it's merely "inspired" by the movie.

73% from critics and 71 from audiences isn't quite fair--should be higher. It looks like this will play for another week in these parts. Or you can wait for the DVD release October 17, 2017.