About Alex (2014) is about an estranged group of college friends that get together years after school when one of them attempts suicide and fails. It has a great ensemble cast of people that I've seen but weren't sure if they were great. Gladly every actor and actress was fantastic Aubrey Plaza (whom I love) is great, Maggie Grace, Jason Ritter, Nate Parker, and (my favorite) Max Greenfield among others. I love the characters and the banter along with the history of them that slowly unfolds through the drama and romance. About Alex is an amazing dramedy. Check it out on Netflix 9.5/10.

The worst thing about About Alex is that it's not interesting. The film is pretty much like any other drama dealing with this sort of mid- young life crisis scenario. The film looks great and is fairly well acted. The script is unimaginative and cringe inducing, but it's now worse that what one encounters on TV dramas when Things Get Serious. If you're looking for a mindless drama full of good looking people, sets, and locations About Alex would be an OK choice.The characters are all clichés and particularly seem to be the sort of people a young writer trying to be serious comes up with. The characters are mostly horrible people, the sort you enjoy seeing die in a slasher film. (Spoiler alert: That sadly doesn't happen.)The most interesting character is Alex, the guy whose attempted suicide is the catalyst for the story (though "story" is a bit of a stretch). Watching Alex's self centered, shallow friends complain and posture made me wonder if he'd had better friends would Alex have ever been in a suicidal state.

Five college friends and a plus one physically come together to watch a friend after he tries to commit suicide but in all other regards they spend the majority of the weekend egocentrically delving into their own unresolved self-generated baggage.It is hard for a film, when it's basically a remake pretending not to be because this time the suicide victim isn't a victim but an attemptee but is hypocritically self-aware and gives homage to its predecessor, to do what it wants authentically without resembling a rip-off. And, fair warning, I have seen The Big Chill, and unintentionally watched it again a week before watching About Alex.From the get-go you know to expect self-indulgent intellectualisms but About Alex is nothing but pretentious ramblings, giving it a loathsome hipsterly quality. The atmosphere of the entire movie is bordering on combative as they angrily banter through the tension. Maybe this was a deliberate decision from writer/director Jesse Zwick; to put a mirror to the disjointed self absorbed nature of the generation and act as a representation and critique of the Facebook age. One would think that people coming together to help another through the days immediately following a suicide attempt would be kind and loving but for the most of the movie you forget they were even friends. The acting is good and roles fully formed, of which Jane Levy and Max Greenfield are most successful, but they can not save their faulted characters.The directing and composition of shots was uninspired, average, and literal. There is an art to telling a story without having it plainly done with the characters' dialogue and that is completely missing from About Alex. This is evident from the very beginning when Zwick decides to waste five minutes showing: the suicide attempt, everyone getting the call about the suicide attempt and making their arrangements to go and deal with the suicide attempt. Instead he could have saved five minutes, had everyone somberly encounter one another, leaving the dialogue as-is where the true subject for being together is implied and pussyfooted around and then cut to the one friend left at the cabin as he tries to clean the bloodstained bathtub. All conversations between two characters are over the shoulder framed close-ups that cut back and forth as they talk to one another.I wanted to like this movie, the trailer had me so hopeful and the cast is sublime but About Alex is masturbatory and decidedly not The Big Chill of our generation.Check out our website for more movie and television reviews!

I just saw this movie and I am really hoping that many people will go see it. While I found myself comparing it to the Big Chill in several spots, the characters do a good job at making it their own. The casting is incredible. I was fully immersed in the story, hoping for certain outcomes in the character's lives, feeling deeply for some, finding comedic relief in others. Being that the attempted suicide by one member of this group of friends is at the heart of this "reunion", I have to applaud Jesse Zwick for not only taking it on, but for also not shying away from showing the many layers of human emotion that surround it ... the misunderstandings, outrage, fear and blame, guilt, and above all love and forgiveness, and hopefully different choices that can be made as an outcome. Good job to the new director/screen writer. You had me at hello.