A strong directorial entry backed by Martin Scorsese...

Lymelife is a remarkable directional debut from relative newcomer, Derick Martini, strongly supported by producer Martin Scorsese. The constant rattle of the Long Island trains, are not the only thing teenager Scott Bartlett must endure...

Told entirely from Scott’s youthful perspective, Lymelife focuses on the intertwined, muddled lives of two families coping with infidelity, love and the impact of Lyme disease in a small 1970s community.

Scott (Rory Culkin) is a regular teenager practicing slick lines in front of the mirror. He imagines himself as a tough guy who can beat the bully who taunts him, envious of his rich construction tycoon father, Mickey. In love with the girl he grew up with, Adrianna (Emma Roberts), Scott must convince her, he is more than just a “brother”.

His own brother, Jimmy (Kieran Culkin) is in the army, using it to escape the pain and anguish caused by his father's infidelities. Scott’s long-suffering mother, Brenda (Jill Hennessy), wants to escape back to Queens like "Dorothy and Oz", preferring to abandon "Bartlettown" constructions and the money it brings, believing the “more money, more problems”.

Melissa (Cynthia Nixon) works for Mickey (Alec Baldwin) and her husband, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), has Lyme's disease, jokingly describing it as a “perpetual acid trip” or more accurately like the flu and declaring that his “head's on fire”. Now a perpetual invalid accompanied by the constant buzzing crackle of Lyme's disease, Charlie’s life is “doom and gloom”, spent pretending to attend job interviews and hunting deer.

Concentrating on dysfunctional families, Lymelife is a more serious Squid and the Whale, that although predominantly dramatic, features some wonderfully comic images, such as that of Scott duck-taped into his beanie and truly hideous 70s-patterned jumper as a reaction to the paranoid community he lives in. As tensions mount, both parents and children outright lie to each other and the showdowns between spouses are treated sympathetically but with dry humor, culminating with possibly the best break-up speech ever: “He knows that you are a mother-fucker, literally”.

Full of double entendres, like “turning down a piece of arse”, referring to deer meat and unexpectedly warped clichéd phrases like “whispering in her ear like a little shit bird”, Lymelife boasts a tight script and low-key comic undertone - even managing to use syphilis to get a chuckle. Beautifully shot with the close attention to detail you’d expect from a Scorsese production, its thematic concerns follow coming of age, the American dream, hereditary disease and the fine distinction between “lying and not being asked” - intermixed with repeated imagery of a solitary deer. Mickey aptly says: “You're either chasing something or running away“, something mirrored by an abrupt and tragic ending that may leave viewers feeling dissatisfied.

Director: Derick Martini
Producer: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Derick and Steven Martini
Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Rory Culkin, Alec Baldwin, Kieran Culkin, Cynthia Nixon, Jill Hennessy, Emma Roberts, Timothy Hutton

Lymelife is released on July 2nd 2010

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