Institute History
Description
That primal and ever-present fear of turning into your parents offers the point of departure for this effervescent tale of two would-be lovers. As Sarah Milson so doggedly points out to the snow-shoveling boy in her new neighborhood, he’s doing it wrong.
Immediately linked as inseparable pals, they become overcommitted to being just friends. When the two approach that pivotal moment of tenderness—sneeze!—James Ellis’s entire body reacts as if it is being violently attacked by a virus. The Ellis family curse has landed on yet another generation, and, as a survivor of ill-fated unions, his desperately quirky mother, played by the ever-arresting Bernadette Peters, explains that the pain becomes the romance.
Structured around irreverent inter-titles, Snow Days takes you on a joyride with its razor-sharp comedic pace, and you couldn’t hope for a better sound track. Caught somewhere between “figuring it out” and “giving up,” James heads off to joins the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, and Sarah brings home a six-footsurprise of her own. Director Adam Marcus’s exuberant cinematic style is a playful and refreshing departure from angst-heavy Generation X filmmaking.
Newcomer Alice Dylan is a natural talent, and writer/producer/actor Kipp Marcus melts your heart away with his puppy-dog stare. Henry Simmons turns in a star performance as James’s smart-mouthed, super-cool best buddy. A wonderfully caricatured performance of the self-involved, back-stabbing roommate from hell by Miriam Shor tops off this giddy, allergy-ridden romp through the impossibly confusing early twenties. What to do, what to do? Sneeze.