Independent Magazine Senior Film Critic Kurt Brokaw Reviews “An Oversimplification”

Imagine a self-indulgent, self-conscious, live-action romance exploring the pangs of unrequited young love in Brooklyn today. What a lame premise. Now imagine it deftly executed through animation, claymation puppetry, cut-cut paper sculptures, and a slew of other visual techniques by a filmmaker who possesses both the playful artfulness of Michel Gondry and the formal aestheticism of Milton Glaser. Oooh, there’s a combination of talents you couldn’t have predicted would fuse in a bluesy, free form, full-tilt, gabby-to-the-point-of exasperating and utterly original movie-movie. You don’t get David Foster Wallace but you get echoes of William Faulkner and a healthy dose of Louise Erdrich with passages read from her novel [Bingo Palace]. Read more…