Dean (film)

Dean is a 2016 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Demetri Martin and produced by Honora Productions. The film stars Martin, Gillian Jacobs and Kevin Kline. Martin plays the title character, Dean, who is a published cartoon artist who draws in a simple style with felt pen and Bristol board. The drawings in the film are done by Martin.
The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 16, 2016 and was released in the United States on June 2, 2017.
Plot.
Dean (Demetri Martin) lives in Brooklyn and has recently lost his mother. His father Robert (Kevin Kline) is having difficulty adjusting to being alone. Dean's ex-fiancée Michelle (Christine Woods) tries to give back the ring, as Dean has "un-proposed," but he refuses.
Dean's best friend from college Brett (Reid Scott) is getting married, and is actually the "second best" man behind Kevin (Barry Rothbart). Eric (Rory Scovel) has come from LA for the wedding. At the wedding, Dean's ex distracts him, he drops the wedding ring and at the reception, Dean begins his best man speech, but gets interrupted by Kevin, who tries to hit him.
The next morning, Dean's dad announces he's selling the house. He uses an excuse of an LA trip to meet with an ad agency who want to use his drawings to postpone. Frustrated by Dean's lack of engagement, his father has already brought in realtors Carol (Mary Steenburgen) and Patrick (Peter Scolari), who he incorrectly assumes are married. Seeing Carol's online dating profile on her PC, he uses it to flirt with her.
The advertising agency puts Dean off by their idea to use his work in a deodorant ad. Dean excuses himself and leaves. Calling his LA friends, including Becca and Eric. he goes to a party he meets Nicky (Gillian Jacobs). and is immediately attracted. He pursues her clumsily, despite Nicky's friend Jill blocking him, and gives her his number, written on small notebook paper in a "twentieth-century way." The next day, at Eric's, he finds out he is cat obsessed.
As Dean is flying out, Nicky's text invites him to the beach, so he gets off the plane, heading there. Finding her, they go to dinner. He kisses her at the end and she invites him to go with her and Jill to an art gallery.
Nicky tells Dean that she and Jill are going to San Francisco. and he tags along with Eric. Just before a hike, Eric gets a call about a cat emergency. and insists on flying home immediately. Dean has to stay in a hotel, tries to kiss Nicky goodbye, but Jill interrupts with the horn. Nicky later appears at Dean's hotel room, spending the night. He confesses he thinks he is in love with her, then mentions the failed engagement and his mother dying. In the morning, Nicky left him a "twentieth-century style" letter at the front desk, apologizing for not telling him she is separated.
Robert and Carol have been dating in New York. Returning from a play, Carol invites him to her apartment for coffee, but he can't because he is "still married".
Dean has returned to New York, and finished his book. He sends a signed copy back to Eric. Robert now lives in an apartment in the city. Dean apologizes for not been there, and he finally reconciles with his dad. Later Robert sees Carol walking in his neighborhood, and they walk on together.
Reception.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 6.13/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Dean"s light touch with heavy themes -- and a talented cast led by writer-director-star Demetri Martin -- help compensate for the familiar story's narrative drift." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film holds a score of 58 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Based in part on Martin's own experience losing his father at age 20 to kidney cancer that may have been caused by a nearby Superfund site, "Dean" received the prize for Best Narrative Feature from the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016, and the Tribeca jury praised the film for "breathing new life into a well-worn genre." John DeFore of "The Hollywood Reporter" noted that the film, a story of grief, generally feels less meta than Martin's comedy work, and he opined that Martin effectively pulls the audience "along for the ride." He continues, "If grief dramedies are as much a rite of passage as romantic rebounds, it's exciting to imagine what Martin's next step as a filmmaker will look like." Critiques of the film focused on the movie's similarity to others in the genre, at some points failing to differentiate itself from its more successful influences.
It ran four weeks in theaters, with a limited distribution. Although not a Box office bomb, it did not recoup the original investment in the theatrical run.