93
The 1990s and early 2000s were
a golden era of odd but ambitious little
American indies like Burr Steers’ Igby
Goes Down and George Huang’s Swim-
ming With Sharks. They may not have
been perfect, but at least they had
chutzpah on their side. Fewer of those
movies find their way into the main-
stream today, but Brian Petsos’ wonky
comedy Big Gold Brick shows a simi-
larly idiosyncratic, go-for-broke spirit.
Its low-key eccentricity—driven by an
affably capricious performance from
Andy Garcia—is its greatest pleasure.
Aspiring writer Samuel (Emory
Cohen) has already found great suc-
cess at being a loser. He’s about to
be tossed out of his apartment, and
he’s had it with life. After stumbling
out onto a dark road, he’s hit by a
car. Behind the wheel is middle-aged
gent Floyd (Garcia), distracted be-
cause he’s shoveling frozen custard
into his mouth while driving. Floyd
rushes Samuel to the hospital, and
as the young man recovers from his
injuries —which appear to have af-
fected his brain, or at least his sense
of reality—Floyd wonders if this
wanna be author might be of use to
him. He signs Samuel up to write his
biography, offering a stipend of $500 a
week and ensconcing him in his flashy
suburban home, replete with a mal-
adjusted teenage son (Leonidas Cas-
trounis), a kind but emotionally fragile
daughter (Lucy Hale), and a libidinous
second wife (Megan Fox).
Floyd, who favors trim blazers
spruced up with devil-may-care pocket
squares, is a classy guy with money—or
is he? Samuel doesn’t have the best grip
on things, but he begins to sense that
something’s amiss, and his encoun-
ter with a villainous zillionaire (Oscar
Isaac, intentionally hamming it up)
proves him right.
Big Gold Brick may be a bit too en-
amored with its own quirkiness, but
everything Garcia does, no matter how
outlandish, feels perfectly natural. Ar-
riving at the hospital with flowers for
Samuel, he dumps the cotton swabs
out of a glass jar without even looking,
missing nary a beat—he needs a vase;
who cares about dumb old swabs? His
comic timing is as suave as Floyd’s as-
cots, as understated as his darkly pan-
eled office. Sometimes it’s the small
showcase that serves actors best. —s.Z.
REVIEW
Samuel (Cohen, left) and Floyd (Garcia) each seize an opportunity
REVIEW
Andy Garcia brings the gold to
an idiosyncratic indie comedy
THE CURSED: ELEVATION PICTURES; THE AUTOMAT: LAWRENCE FRIED—A SLICE OF PIE PRODUCTIONS; BIG GOLD BRICK: SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS
