Moon Manor: A 'True-ish' FUNeral Party That Dies Before Our Eyes
By Liam Lacey
Rating: C
In Moon Manor, Jimmy, a gay man in his eighties who is struggling with Alzheimer’s disease, decides to end his life with a pill and a party.
Friends new and old are invited to his house for his “FUNeral,” an event which – in the lead-up to his fatal dose - involves costumes, musical performance and home videos about Jimmy’s colourful life as an entertainer and entrepreneur.
The phenomenon of death parties has been well-documented in the media in recent years, as well as serving as the occasional fictional premise (including an episode of the Jane Fonda-Lily Tomlin series, Grace and Frankie). Moon Manor is in a middle ground, a fiction that claims to be “true-ish”.
The stories are drawn from the life of its octogenarian central character, James “Jimmy” Carrozo, a journeyman actor, musician and comedian, who is, in real life, alive and well.
Carozzo was in the 1969 Los Angeles cast of Hair and performed for several years as a musical duo with his partner, Ricky Granat, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1986.
First-time feature filmmaker, Erin Granat, who co-wrote and directed the film along with Machete Bang Bang, is the niece of the late Granat, which makes this something of a home movie. Documentary material from Carozzo’s career are blended with dramatized flashback scenes and many testimonies (including former talk-show host Ricki Lake) about how wacky, irreverent and colourful Jimmy is.
While the dialogue is often awkwardly expository, the central cast are decent: Carozzo carries himself like merry old roué, rarely displaying evidence of his supposed impairment. Lou Taylor Pucci (Thumbsucker) plays an earnest young reporter, hoping to make his break from obits to front-page feature by his account of Jimmy’s farewell party.
Debra Wilson, of Mad TV fame, appears as the shaved and tatoo’d Fritti, Jimmy’s energetic death doula, with Reshma Gajjar as his fond care-giver, and also, handily, a traditional Indian dancer.
In this hybrid biography and fiction, it’s never possible to sort out where fact ends and creative whimsy begins. (Did Jimmy actually attempt to sell real estate on the moon? Other hucksters have.) What’s more frustrating is the film’s tone, which whiplashes between New Age sanctimony and juvenile humour.
A couple of Christian protestors — Richard Riehle as a fanatical clergyman and Galen Howard as his idiotic assistant — are crude caricatures. Then there’s a horned pagan god figure in a tinselly robe who only Jimmy can see, who announces to him that it represents his “intuition.”
Though the original soundtrack by various artists has some polished, melancholy ballads, Moon Manor could lose a few numbers, especially the one with the rap break: “Look at that guy. He has the right to die …Jimmy’s gonna take flight tonight. And it’s gonna be ah-ah-ah-alright.”
Not really the last words you would want to caress your ears before the dying of the light.
Moon Manor. Written and directed by Erin Granat and Machete Bang Bang. Starring James Carrozo, Debra WIlson, Richard Riehle, Lou Taylor Pucci, Reshma Gajjar, Galen Howard. Moon Manor is available on video on demand from March 11.