{"id":18311,"date":"2017-10-09T13:43:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T19:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flovalleynews.com\/?p=18311"},"modified":"2017-10-09T13:43:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T19:43:57","slug":"brads-status-is-almost-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flovalleynews.com\/?p=18311","title":{"rendered":"‘Brad\u2019s Status’ is Almost Too Much"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brad<\/a>
Brad (Ben Stiller) at the moment of reckoning brought on by taking his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), on a tour of Ivy League colleges.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Sandra Olmsted<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In Brad\u2019s Status<\/em>, director Mike White delves into the emotional struggles of Brad (Ben Stiller) at the moment of reckoning brought on by taking his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), on a tour of Ivy League colleges. Although clearly Brad and his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) have much to be thankful for, Brad sincerely believes his college buddies have fared much better than he has. Stuck somewhere between jealousy and regret, Brad questions his whole life from a glass-half-empty perspective. Even though there are moments of truth, pathos, and humor, Brad\u2019s real status is revealed in near monologue form.<\/p>\n

While Brad spent his life creating and heading a nonprofit which helps with other nonprofits, his college buddies have become rich and famous; however, the upper-middle-class Brad and Melanie don\u2019t seem to be hurting for anything. Brad also has to contend with the notion that Troy, a musical prodigy, is more talented and more likely to get into any college, including Harvard, which rejected Brad back in his day. When a snafu jeopardizes Troy\u2019s acceptance at Harvard, Brad calls on his old buddies for help tracking down Craig Fisher (Michael Sheen), a political author and White House adviser who lectures at Harvard, to get Troy another interview. Meanwhile, Troy introduces Brad to Ananya (Shazi Raja), a friend from home who does attend Harvard, and Brad imagines visions of his future in which Troy surpasses his father and distances himself from his dad. When Brad runs into Ananya at a bar and without Troy, she eventually accuses Brad of having \u201cenough\u201d and suffering from \u201cfirst world problems,\u201d which Brad sets off on yet another evaluation of his life.<\/p>\n

Then, Brad calls each of his other old buddies: Jason Hatfield (Luke Wilson), who married money and became a hedge fund star with a private jet and a perfect family, and Billy Wearslter (Jemaine Clement), the computer genius who sold his company for a fortune and lives a \u201cdream life\u201d in a Maui beach house with two young women. Making Brad feel worst, he also learns he and Melanie were not invited to the wedding of buddy and famed filmmaker Nick Pascale (Mike White).<\/p>\n

Seemingly to explain why middle-age men buy sports cars, director White gives Stiller his lead to reveal Brad\u2019s mid-life crises in soliloquies spoken in either narration or to other characters who aren\u2019t really listening. To his credit, Stiller mostly makes Brad a sympathetic character whose problems, although certainly \u201cfirst world,\u201d are not trivial or unimportant. Brad is, however, somewhat ungrateful to his old buddies, who are having their own problems. The resolution reaffirms the idea of a good life during and after middle age although it takes too long to get there.<\/p>\n

There is solid acting from the whole cast, especially up-and-coming Abrams. In theaters now, Brad\u2019s Status<\/em>, an Amazon Studios and Annapurna Pictures release, is rated R for language and runs a bit long at 101 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sandra Olmsted In Brad\u2019s Status, director Mike White delves into the emotional struggles of Brad (Ben Stiller) at the moment of reckoning brought on by taking his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), on a tour of Ivy League colleges. Although clearly Brad and his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) have much to be thankful for, Brad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,13,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-florissant-church-news","category-entertainment-travel","category-movie-reviews","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n'Brad\u2019s Status' is Almost Too Much - flovalleynews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/flovalleynews.com\/?p=18311\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Brad\u2019s Status' is Almost Too Much - flovalleynews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Sandra Olmsted In Brad\u2019s Status, director Mike White delves into the emotional struggles of Brad (Ben Stiller) at the moment of reckoning brought on by taking his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), on a tour of Ivy League colleges. 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