Really, Matthew McDuffie has done a rather brilliant job at giving color, depth, and delineation to a generation that seems inchoate to their elders and "betters." Mr. McDuffie has portrayed an anti-Shavian universe with more subtlety than is at first apparent. The characters in his film, like many of their generation, have lost adequate vocabularies in which to describe the milieu in which they move. Their conversation is bereft of wit, allusion to history, literature, or anything else beyond their small frames of reference. No, these are not the entrancing beings who populate the worlds of Wilde or Shaw; they take no delight n conversation, betray no appetite for repartee. These young women and men communicate by way of texts, and must function in such a joyless dimension that a funeral for a friend, with its slap of shock and grief, must be transformed into a "funeral" Still this writer/director has shown these same young people to possess wisdom beyond their years, sweetness, and tolerance of the self- involved, Irresponsible generation who raised them. McDuffie has managed to capture this universe with a deft touch and a compassionate eye.
My only criticismis that Andy Buckley, who played a corporate CEO so flawlessly on The Office, is far too patrician a type to be shown in a tee-shirt and five o'clock shadow.
