Awful ‘Carousel’ with Chris Pine will give you depression: Sundance review

PARK CITY, Utah — Woe is me! And woe is he! And woe is she!

At “Carousel,” the dreary plod that premiered Thursday in the Sundance Film Festival, woe is we.

The title of director Rachel Lambert’s drama could refer to a carnival merry-go-round that goes in circles with many ups and downs. 

Or, it might be nodding to the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that hooks you with lush romance but really is about complex, messy adult relationships.

I, for one, thought of the conveyor belt at the airport baggage claim. You stand there with the dregs of the Earth; wait and wait and wait and wait and then go home.

Chris Pine and Jenny Slate play two former lovers, Noah and Rebecca, who reunite in Cleveland, Ohio, during a new phase in their sad, sad lives. Before you decide that’s sweet, know that they go to great lengths to never enjoy being around each other.

Noah is a doctor for a family practice that was co-owned by his late father and a guy named Sam (Sam Waterston), who is possibly now married to Noah’s mother (Katey Sagal). 

The relationships and timeline here are not-legally-able-to-drive blurry, and on purpose it would seem. Everyone’s too depressed to dwell on details. I didn’t realize Heléne Yorke’s secretary was Noah’s sister till almost an hour into the film.

Rebecca, who has a void in her life, has come back from Washington DC, where she worked in politics, to help her parents sell their house. By happenstance, she winds up as Noah’s daughter Maya’s (Abby Ryder Fortson) debate coach. 

The old flames spot each other one night from across a bar. He pays for her drinks, stares at her stone-faced and leaves.

Love is the air!

Maya, like everybody here, has got problems too. She suffers from depression and anxiety attacks since her parents’ divorce. If she forgets her homework on the counter, for instance, she’ll start screaming and pounding her fists on the dashboard. 

Although Noah hovers over his teen daughter obsessively every time she gets a paper cut, he’s completely unfazed by her alarming tantrums. 

After a particularly violent one, Noah and Rebecca fight over how best to parent Maya, who obviously needs help, in a scene that’s so insufferably long and cold you start to dream a groundhog will pop out and end it early.

Pine, who’s starred in a lot of stinkers since “Star Trek,” is admirably sensitive and shows range he hasn’t before. Good for him. And Slate is a reliably wonderful actress who fits snuggly in these thrift-store worlds of modern non-commitment. The pair doesn’t have much chemistry though since their characters share a hobby of being whiny and off-putting. 

Breaking up the drudgery is one of the strangest montages I’ve ever seen. 

After dropping Maya off for a flight at Cleveland Airport, Noah heads to the terminal bar and gets sloshed. Cut to this blotto dude in Nashville at another airport bar. We never see the plane. He falls asleep on the floor by a gate, wakes up, buys a ticket and then flies back to Ohio.

It’s then we’re pretty sure he’s an alcoholic. The movie ends less than 10 minutes later.

“Carousel” is one of those tundra, dimly-lit living-room movies that snobs defend as closer to “real life.” 

Real life isn’t romantic. Real life isn’t exciting. Real life isn’t witty. Real life isn’t colorful. Real life doesn’t get better. And on and on, until the only possible retort is, “So, why, exactly, am I watching this?”