'A Little Help' needs a little help
The independent movie A LITTLE HELP is mostly set on Long Island in the year 2002, and is about a few pivotal months in the life of dental hygienist Laura Pehlke (Jenna Fischer) an ordinary woman whose life suddenly flies off the rails and her heroic efforts to re-establish a sense of security and normalcy for herself and her son. The film is directed by Michael Weithorn and plays in theaters July 22, 2011. Here, Dennis and Laura (Daniel Yelsky and Jenna Fischer) sit in a park. (2010) Credit: Secret Handshake Photo/
Jenna Fischer can be an enormously likable actress, as fans of "The Office" will readily attest. But "A Little Help" needs more of a boost than even her charms can provide. Written and directed by TV vet Michael J. Weithorn ("The King of Queens"), this quasi-tragi-comedy is about . . . well, what is it about? Such is the problem: It's a movie on the verge. Of what is never quite clear.
Like a parade of hors d'oeuvres that never quite leads to a meal, the episodes within "A Little Help" are nicely composed, if a bit overripe with cliched suburban angst. It's 2002 Port Washington, and Laura Pehlke (Fischer) is in an unhappy marriage with the philandering Bob (Chris O'Donnell); her mother (Lesley Ann Warren) is a domineering shrew; her father (Ron Leibman) has checked out of reality; her sister (Brooke Smith) takes after Mom, and Laura is more or less adrift in her own existential torpor. Until Bob drops dead. And her son Dennis (Daniel Yelsky) tells everyone that Dad was a fireman who died on 9/11.
All this sounds far more cohesive than what Weithorn has delivered. There's a distinct question of tone -- Bob's death happens with such abrupt absurdity you're not sure whether to be tickled or sad. The more obvious attempts at comedy have a shrillness about them that evokes something, but not laughs. Fischer is good as a woman adrift; physically as well as dramatically, she can play convincingly bedraggled. The other bright spots are young Yelsky, and Kim Coates, who, as Laura's lawyer in her case against Bob's doctor, kick-starts the movie every time he's on-screen. But he can't provide focus, and that's what the movie needs.
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