'C.O.G.': Four Stars (Out of Five)

Comedy drama film about a young college graduate (from Yale) who travels to Oregon to takes a job (under an alias) as an apple picker and then a clock maker. He has to deal with a lot of really religious and poor folks who find him very awkward and odd. It's based on the autobiographical short story by popular humorist and author David Sedaris ('C.O.G.' was featured in his 1997 collection of essays 'Naked'). The movie was written and directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez and stars Jonathan Groff (of 'GLEE' fame). I found it to be darkly humorous and a pretty insightful look at human nature.

Groff plays David (based on Sedaris) who travels to Oregon (the movie was filmed all on location in Portland), after he graduates from Yale, in order to work among common folks (using the name Samuel). He first gets a job as an apple picker, working for a farmer named Hobbs (Dean Stockwell), and is promoted to work in the factory there. After complications arise with a co-worker (Corey Stoll) he leaves his job suddenly and calls up an extremely religious Christian, named Jon (Denis O'Hare), he met on the street (handing out pamphlets). Jon calls himself a 'C.O.G' (Child of God). He takes David in to the house he's temporarily staying at and teaches him how to make Oregon shaped clocks with him, to sell at an upcoming fair.

The movie is an interesting character study that is darkly funny but also pretty depressing; just when things are looking up (for our hero) they're always being turned around again and it's a pretty pessimistic look at life (in a lot of ways). It is based on Sedaris's actual experiences though. I really like Groff's performance, Alvarez's directing and the haunting music (which plays heavily throughout the film) by Steve Reich. I look forward to movies from all these three again as well as more adaptations from David Sedaris's writings!

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The instant I saw the boy from Glee on the screen with his college sweater, against a score of staccato claps, I knew this film and the word 'Pretentious' were already entwined till the credits with the muted plucking music.

So as the Backlash B-tch I am, I decided to watch the whole film just to spite that particular stereotype.

God, I'm glad I did! I was born in a religious cult...called C.O.G. So it's kind of unsurprising that I resonated with it. But this film has so much that is human, and raw, and true about it that it has to have some impact on the rest of you. Groff's performance goes from cocky and superior in the most honest portrayal of the usual American postgrad I've seen, to so vulnerable and naive and yearning that my heart felt like it was being crushed. He's as lost, disenfranchised and confused as every other 20-something I know - but it seeps out of his pores and swims in his eyes in a way that's very hard to watch. I guess that's the Millenial Generation, stripped bare and made fun of, yet not looked down on. David is just a boy, not a polarising symbol of a Lost Generation, and the film knows this.

Just a boy. That's why it hurt to see him be taken advantage of, time and again. It hurt even more, for me, to watch him try to find himself and cure his sexual 'sickness' in religion. I have known people like John. They exist. Everyone in this film exists.

I'm not being coherent. This film impacted me that much.

I think you should watch it.

For those who admire the writings of David Sedaris (essays and short stories - Barrel Fever, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), and When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, and Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013) and thus know that much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, Greek heritage, being out as a gay man, jobs, education, drug use, obsessive behaviors and his life in France, London, and the English South Downs) will be pleased to see his humor translated to the screen by writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez. The other aspect of this at times controversial film that makes it important is the choice of casting Jonathan Groff, the gay actor who begins the television series 'Looking' this spring. The choices make the film even more enjoyable because the emphasis is not on the gay aspect but instead on the trials of coming of age and struggling with all the bulwarks society places in our way.

David (meant to be David Sedaris) is a cocky young man who graduates from Yale, yet to escape his dysfunctional family and see the world as it really is, travels to Oregon to work on an apple farm run by Hobbs (Dean Stockwell). Struggling as a non-Hispanic worker he is befriended by a driver named Curly (Corey Stoll) who picks up on David's sexual ambiguity and attempts to seal his fate. David escapes, falls under the wing Jon (Denis O'Hare), a evangelistic Christian who has a history of alcohol addition and anger management all of which he hides under the cloak of being a C.O.G. (Child of God). David joins Jon in making jade clocks in the shape of Oregon to sell at the fair. He 'sees the light' and decides to become a C.O.G. and from there the story plays out in very strange ways. Out of his element, he finds his lifestyle and notions being picked apart by everyone who crosses his path. And his final coming out realization is gently subtle.

The cast is uniformly excellent, but the major kudos go to Jonathan Groff who demonstrates his fine acting skills and magnetic screen presence. The film is after all just a story about a boy of our times. It resonates well.

Grady Harp