Peep World

Impressions before seeing it
I never would have heard of it if the trailer hadn't shown up on one of my blu-rays, but it looked like another fun ensemble indie comedy.

How was it?
Peep World is like... well, the idiot brother of Our Idiot Brother. Nathan (Ben Schwartz, better known as Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Recreation) outs all of his siblings' secrets and flaws when he writes a book about his dysfunctional family, and they get pissed about it. Sort of the same premise as the recent Paul Rudd flick, only Nathan is not someone who does things by accident so neither we nor his family have much of a reason to forgive him.

My biggest problem with this movie is that it was too short. It doesn't even crack 80 minutes, let alone a standard 90. Now when you're making a movie about a family with four adult siblings living separate lives, plus their parents - who are divorced, so that's six different households - you either need the time to make sure all of the characters are fleshed out, or you have to write well enough to be able to do it in a shorter amount of time. I felt that Peep World failed at this. The characters were very nearly one-dimensional because there were too many of them, and the family members don't really share scenes until later in the movie, which is just lost opportunity to develop multiple characters at once. And then it leaves us with an ending that is unsatisfying because it feels rushed, forced, and unearned. The abrupt cut to black had me saying "that's it?", not necessarily because I wanted to see more, but because I should have already seen more. On top of that, it doesn't do anything new or funny comedically; its biggest joke, which the filmmakers clearly thought was way funnier than it really is, consists of a boner that won't go away. And this isn't even a raunchy, low-brow type of movie.

Recommendation
It's marginally fun just for the performances from the ensemble cast (though to me it felt like Michael C. Hall was still playing Dexter), but I can't recommend it because it is lacking in every area except the acting. I didn't completely hate it, but I was highly disappointed.