I saw the A-list actors in this and thought wow, this has got to be an amazing film! Wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm not sure what Jeff Goldblum, Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, were thinking when they did this one. I saw a bratty, whiny, rich teen who constantly complained about everything, when he had nothing to complain about. (Kieran Culkan) And his mother (Susan Sarandon)? Neurotic, eccentric, drunken, druggie doesn't even come close to describing his crazy-ass mother. I could go on and on about these annoying characters with nothing redeemable them, but that would "spoil" this movie. It was so choppy. A scene would be thrown in, like the crazy-ass mother sitting on the maid's head, with no intro...why was she sitting on the maid's head? The only thing good about this movie is the New York City scenery. If you want to see a bunch of rich, whiny people on drugs, all cheating on each other and basically being a**holes, then this is your movie. Just know that you will waste 98 minutes of your life. Minutes that you will never be able to get back.

Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin) is from a crazy dysfunctional family. The movie opens with him and brother Oliver (Ryan Phillippe) smothering their sleeping mother (Susan Sarandon) with a plastic bag. Then it dives back into their lives before. Igby is a rebellious f-up who is sent to military school. His father Jason (Bill Pullman) suffers from mental instability. His domineering mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) is a mess. His older brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe) is a republican. D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum) is his godfather. Then there are Banes' drug-addicted mistress Rachel (Amanda Peet) and the wonderfully charming Sookie (Claire Danes).Kieran could be a great actor. He does a great slacker rebel. Something about his character just rubs me the wrong way. I don't like this character. I don't like anybody in this movie. Don't get me wrong. I love all the actors here, but I just don't like any of the characters. Everybody is mean-spirited and selfish. I can't bring myself to liking this movie.

Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sarcastic seventeen year-old boy, is at war with the oppressive world of his East Coast "old money" family. With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed, distant mother, and a shark-like young Republican big brother, Igby figures there must be a better life out there, and he sets out to find it. After happily flunking out of several Prep Schools, Igby escapes into the bohemian underworld of Manhattan. His darkly comic trip--shared by a deviant cast of characters, including his terminally bored, part-time lover Sookie, his Godfather's trophy mistress Rachel, and smack-dealing performance artists Russel--veers from bizarre to tragic in Igby's ultimately noble attempt to keep himself from "going down"...It's hard to describe Igby goes down, but I guess it is a black comedy/drama that never crosses completely to any of the genres. It's a very cleverly written film with a great element of realism and also a very nice soundtrack. All the actors did a good job with Claire Danes shining a little more then the others but the film belongs to Kieran Culkin. He was truly fantastic as the witty and sharp Igby and having seen Lymelife(2008) recently, I hope to see more of this actor in the future, as he seems very promising. The plot which is a little offbeat and extremely refreshing is what you usually find in indie films, because you know this kind of story would never be financed by a major studio because clearly, it's not for everyone. However if you're interested in quirky and clever films that are not so much fiction but a close depiction of real life then Igby Goes Down is a must-see.8/10

Igby is a slacker born to wealth and privilege who spends all his time avoiding any kind of change to the life he hates.This is vaguely like a J.D. Salinger story, as if the screenwriter was trying to emulate his hero almost to the point of plagiarism. Mostly it's a story of people who are so self-centered they don't even notice they are better off than they deserve, spending all their time doing drugs and boning each other. Picture the residents of a stereotypical trailer park if they had lots of money. Sadly, people from a trailer park would probably be a lot more interesting and a lot more grateful for having so much leisure time.Igby is about as interesting as any teenage dropout; if you've seen one, you've seen Igby.