‘I Feel Fine’ (2024) Movie Review - This Drama Has Good Actors

Austin and Hailey Spicer's I Feel Fine, which will have a special panel screening at the Urban Film Festival on September 10, has a nice dramatic core at its center. It's about a young boy named Ozzy (Elijah Passmore) who suffers from Suicidal obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He will look up towards the fan or stare at a swimming pool and get thoughts of committing suicide. The problem is that Ozzy not only considers taking his life, he goes ahead and takes the fatal step if no one is around to stop him. A character like this is equally disturbing and fascinating - he evokes sadness as well as sympathy. The Spicers, unfortunately, overly rely on these built-in feelings. Instead of developing or diving into the mind of this character, they display his external behavior and reduce him to a ticking time bomb that can explode at any moment. I found this information in the email that I got from the PR team: "Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Suicidal obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an OCD subtype that includes unwanted thoughts, images, or impulses related to killing oneself. According to the American Psychological Association, more than 20% of teens have considered suicide." The Spicers seem to have made Ozzy out of these details. He is a shallow representation of all those teens who suffer from this disorder.

You can find this shallowness in what the Spicers choose to show and hide. Ozzy is apparently a talented writer who, after receiving a suggestion from his English professor, dives deep into his heart and comes up with a dark essay that fills the teacher with anxiety. This process - of thinking, of writing - is left out of the movie, making it feel as if Ozzy merely moved a wand, said, "Abracadabra" and the essay appeared before him. To be a good writer, you need to be a good reader, but when you look inside Ozzy's room, you notice not books but mostly posters. When Mia (Nandi Summers) asks Ozzy if his parents would allow him to pursue music, he says yes. She doesn't ask him to sing a song for her or bother to inquire about what kind of music he likes. The characters' incuriosity is matched by that of the Spicers. They fail to root the story within a specific timeframe, which is why you are always confused regarding the year the film is set. Many moments lead you to believe we are in the 80s. At a skating arena, an employee uses a telephone instead of a mobile. In fact, no adult or teenager in I Feel Fine is seen with a smartphone. In one of the scenes, Ozzy's father, Donnie (Corin Nemec), mentions that it will take some time to shift Ozzy's studies online. You, however, don't notice a laptop or a desktop in Ozzy's home. Margaret (Jana Lee Hamblin), Ozzy's mother, collects beetles to earn money. The entire family helps her to run this business. Ozzy takes Margaret to catch some bugs at one point. Yet, we don't actually see how they manage to catch beetles, and we never learn how this business is exactly run, sustained, or turned into a profit-making machine.

When Ozzy and Mia spend time amidst the greenery, the camera, through soft blurs, tries to render the image poetic. It only reveals the low-budget quality of this film, but that's fine. What's worse is the TV-level cheapness of scenes like the one where Ozzy, irritated by the "grand welcome," says he is fine, and we cut to reaction shots of the attendees. The scene where Ozzy's diagnosis is spelled out by a doctor is terrible. I could almost spot the "Pay attention, this is educational" sign. There is a lesson for the parents: rather than being cool, they should be more responsible. You also sense something crucial in the jokey, insensitive comments that the characters immediately give to a serious situation, like when Summer (Tori Passmore) deals with heartbreak, and Everett (Braeden Sorbo) is scammed. There might be a message here about how we should be more kind during such circumstances, but it all remains vague.

The one (and sadly the only) good thing about I Feel Fine is the performances. The young actors talk to each other with a sense of casualness, indicating they are still in their "free from responsibilities" phase. The camera, just by observing the characters, generates a languor mood that gives the movie a documentary-like touch - it's a fly-on-the-wall experience. Corin Nemec superbly brings alive a character who wants to care for his children while being a friend to them. Elijah Passmore makes Ozzy's emotional turmoils palpable. His unhappy face charges the movie with a melancholic atmosphere. I was pretty impressed by Nandi Summers. There is a scene where she does something with her eyes, and when it doesn't work, you observe a flash of vulnerability and embarrassment in her expression that's so intense you almost want to cheer her up by whispering, "It's okay." All the actors infuse life into their thinly written roles, and without them, I Feel Fine wouldn't have felt very fine.

Note - I Feel Fine will be released through Amazon on September 10, 2024.
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times