Dummy (2003) 

Greg Pritikin would tell you that his debut as a major motion picture writer/director, Dummy, is a film about small successes. The kind of accomplishments that go unnoticed and grossly under appreciated in the American social atmosphere where everyone sits back and awaits their fifteen minutes.

Pritikin, a vastly talented, uncommonly observant, perhaps even genius newcomer, who remains soft spoken, introspective, and humble (despite his fantastic luck of casting Adrien Brody before El Pianista struck gold), paraphrased the writer Henry Miller when describing the perspective he took when writing the intentionally uplifting melancomedy yarn about an awkward, middle class, introverted bochur who finds his voice only after sticking his hand into the bowels of a wooden puppet – a dummy. Miller remarked that in America we are raised to aspire toward celebrity, riches, and importance. We are convinced at a young age, as Nas puts it, that we can “be what we want to be if we work hard at it.” Therefore, when reality sets in and we find ourselves living the anti-climatic average life of our forefathers, we are considered failures. In Europe, you’re taught that you’re shit now and you’re going to be shit for the rest of your unholy days - and therefore an inconsequential life filled with tedium but laced with minor achievements presents a more acceptable, perhaps joyful existence. Pritikin intends to refocus Americans upon and celebrate these objectively minor achievements that we may take for granted. Europeans watching the film can feel free to just laugh their proletarian asses off.

In Dummy, we are introduced to a leafy suburban façade shadowing the ugliness of young dreams withering, unfulfilled romances, and a stingingly familiar, obliviously insensitive Jewish family; who would rather have their children married to lunatic, depraved lawyers than not married at all (Yes, you will be laughing despite your instinct to cringe). Brody plays the title character in another marvelously underscored performance as he conveys sweetness and innocence in trying to win the heart of curiously lovely actress Vera Farmiga, while only being able to speak to her through his ventriloquism act. His dream is to be a ventriloquist. His best friend, a punked out, foul mouthed, hilariously white trash chick – played by the stunning, miraculous, ever blossoming Milla (The 5th Element)Jovovich (who will win an Oscar one day), - has her own small scale offbeat dream, to have her band play in front of a crowd. She'll play any crowd - even if it means learning Yiddish and rocking out Klezmer hits at a Jewish wedding in the stirring and hysterical climax of the film. She manages to balance her character between well meaning, loyal friend and misguided, careless, illogical delinquent. The Ferris to his Cameron - The Vinnie Delpino to his Doogie Howser - The John Bender to his Claire Standish (Send me more).

Illeana Douglas, portrays Brody’s sister in a complex performance that has Douglas doing broad comedy, and intense emotional flexing. She is a wedding planner, left insecure and conflicted after her own wedding plans end in disaster, all while putting off her own life-long singing dreams to please her utterly dysfunctional, suffocating, unloving parents. The somewhat clichéd Jewish parents, played by real life couple Jessica Walter and Ron Leibman, certainly will feel like an age old stereotype to those of us with some knowledge about these things . So expect to cry, both out of laughter and embarrassment.

Three middle class Americans. Three subjective, pure, heart wrenching aspirations. Will they get there? Even small successes need perseverance, courage, creativity, passion, and effort to come to fruition - which is the director’s other message here. Pritikin’s dream is to tell stories that mean something and resonate in the spirit – no minor task. He may be asking his audience to pay attention and embrace small successes, but with Dummy, he has pulled off a great one.

Q&A with Greg Pritikin

Q: Is ventriloquism a dead art form?
A: Well, it’s a dead art form like some people say Yiddish is a dead language. You may think it’s dead but if you go to neighborhoods in Brooklyn it is all they speak. As long as there are kids, there will be someone with a puppet or a dummy entertaining kids with the art of ventriloquism.

Q: As the writer of this film, you seem to have a contempt or distaste for Americanized Jewish culture, but at the same time, you show a reverence for European Jewish culture by saving some of the most memorable scenes for Milla and her Klezmer performance?
A: My attitude was not to make some message movie about Jewish culture. I was not making a social commentary. These characters are not necessarily Jewish. The idea was to show the problems with the middle class – where they value pomp and circumstance and overlook real accomplishments and real triumphs. The characters are Jewish because I am. They say “write what you know” and that’s what I know. I wasn’t raised in a Catholic family, but I’m sure things are the same…maybe, but if I was Catholic then I’d write about that. Milla, who is not a Jewish character gets more reverence from me than the Jewish unlikable characters because she takes an interest in the Yiddish culture and dedicates herself to it. That is more admirable to me in contrast to the gaudy wedding being planned. My sympathies are with her passion for Yiddish rather than planning a big garish wedding.

Q: What were some of things you did before becoming a screenwriter and director?
A: I had no skills to get a real job. I always fancied myself a writer but I was broke. I’m still broke. I worked in a tobacco shop for a few years and became a tobacco expert – not because I love tobacco, but I do.

For a while I was a process server, serving legal papers on people. I was actually the guy who served the divorce papers on Claire Bloom (who was married to Portnoy’s Complaint and The Human Stain author Philip Roth) and she mentions my audacity of asking her for her autograph at the time in her autobiography – I think on page 220. It’s a rough job. I know a guy who went to serve papers on some Chasidim in a camera store – not B&H – but some other one, and they beat the shit out of him…(sarcastically) but [Judaism] is a very peaceful religion – can’t let a few bad apples ruin things.

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