Diminished Capacity

52

IFC Films (92 minutes)
and Terry Kinney
Matthew Broderick , Alan Alda , Virginia Madsen , Dylan Baker , Louis C.K. , and Bobby Cannavale

Rating: Not Rated

Summary: Director Terry Kinney's delightfully poignant and bittersweet comedy poses the question: How much is a good memory worth? That's the question that faces newspaper editor Cooper after a debilitating concussion takes him from the political pages to comic strip detail. Looking for answers, he travels home to Missouri where his now-senile Uncle Rollie is on the verge of losing his home. When a valuable baseball card is thrown into the mix, these two men, along with a motley group of hometown friends, including Cooper's high school sweetheart, Charlotte, head to a memorabilia expo to make the deal of a century, diving headfirst into a snake pit of slick salesmen, crooked dealers, and rabid fans revealing that there are some things in life you can't put a price on. (IFC Films)

Kyle Smith
New York Post:
(75) The smart indie comedy Diminished Capacity deals with three kinds of dementia: those relating to aging, concussions and being a Chicago Cubs fan. Tying those three things together is a task that the witty script does with surprising adroitness.

Jan Stuart
Los Angeles Times:
(70) All of the actors convey the ebullience of old friends convening for an on-the-cheap reunion. The shared good spirits result in a diminutive comedy with a bounty of charm and shrewd humor.

Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide:
(63) A risky, not entirely successful comedy about mental disability, based on the novel by Sherwood Kiraly.

Claudia Puig
USA Today:
(63) A road movie that never really takes off.

Manohla Dargis
The New York Times:
(50) Touches earnestly on heart-heavy issues of loss: loss of memory, of love and, perhaps because of the local angle, of (or rather by) the Chicago Cubs. But Mr. Kinney, a founder of the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago and a familiar face from film and television, never gives his movie a sustained pulse.

J.R. Jones
Chicago Reader:
(50) When a respected actor moves into the director's chair, he can usually draw a pretty good cast, which is certainly the case here... But Sherwood Kiraly's slight script only makes this embarrassment of riches seem more embarrassing.

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