The fact that Alex Lehmann’s “Paddleton'‘ concerns two friends, one of which has just been told he’s dying of cancer, could make you run scared from the sob-fest that is about to happen, but “Paddleton” isn’t a “Love Story” or a “Terms of Endearment,” rather it’s a film that is incredibly light on its feet with humor and heartbreak and which sidesteps whatever cliches can be found in this kind of gooey territory. Despite some narrative straining, the payoff is beautifully rendered.
Opening with the diagnosis of cancer, the film has 90 minutes to tell its two-character piece, a low-budget two-hander that generates laughs, despite the tonal restraints that come with such a story. Lehmann wrote the screenplay with Mark Duplass (who also stars as the cancer-stricken character), and this collaboration thoroughly surprised me in how absorbed I was by their friendship once the film arrived at its final stretch.
As mentioned, Duplass’ Michael is terminally ill, but decides that he wants to end his life on his own terms, before the inevitable suffering begins. That means no chemo, no sick pills, just a medically-legal suicide. Yes, there is such a thing. He needs upstairs neighbor and best friend Andy (Ray Romano) to help him out, these guys are inseparable, chilling at the apartment by watching old kung-fu movies, or playing paddleton outdoors, a game they invented which involves a paddle and hitting a ball against a factory wall until it bounces into a garbage can, or something like that.
I mentioned earlier on that the film is a two-character piece because it is, there are barely any supporting characters in “Paddleton,” Michael and Andy seem to be each other’s only friends. This turns out to be both a blessing and a curse to the film. It’s a way to develop and enrich the friendship between the two men, making you care about them in more intensely personal ways, by watching them converse, care for each other and rely on each other. This does end up making the movie meander a bit as Andy accompanies Michael on a six-hour road trip to obtain the deadly drugs, which, in turn, has Andy locking up the pills inside a safe, and refusing to tell Michael the combination. He doesn’t want his friend to commit the deed. How touching.
I’m not an expert at what it takes to obtain a lethal dosage of medication, thank God, but the matter-of-fact way Michael receives his toxic prescription in “Paddleton” cannot be totally accurate, I’m sure there are laws and regulations that have to be adhered to in real life, alas, the film does simplify the matter but gets to the nitty-gritty which is that a pharmacy is found by the two men, which adheres to these sort of prescriptions, on moral grounds, and Michael gets his 100 pills for $3,500. Welcome to America.
Still, for most of its slight runtime, “Paddleton” is surprisingly upbeat, relying on the deadpan humor between Romano and Duplass: Especially the aforementioned road trip which sees the two comic actors feeding off of each others improvised lines, with comic bits which range from an argument about an incomplete hangman game they had and Andy’s insistence that he has been working on the greatest halftime motivational speech a coach could ever deliver. The latter is continuously referred to throughout the movie. Of course, this is all a prelude, though, to the final moments shared by Michael and Andy which are rendered in such soft-spokenly subtle ways — The film, for the most part, may be a bumpy ride of hit and miss jokes, but by the end of “Paddleton” Lehmann and his two fine actors give us a movingly lovely tribute to the power of friendship. [B-]
The film is now available to stream on Netflix.