Lymelife is categorized as a comedy, however, it's the sort of black humor that scorches because it strikes a chord. Charlie (Timothy Hutton) is depressed and on antibiotics for Lyme disease. Here's an excerpt of film reviewer Rob Nelson's critique of the movie, which previewed at the Sundance Film Festival last fall:

The film centers on thin, 15-year-old bully magnet Scott (Rory Culkin), whose older, bulkier brother, Jim (Kieran Culkin), prepares to ship off to military duty, and whose longtime crush, Adrianna (Emma Roberts), reluctantly begins to return his timid gaze.

Adrianna's pill-popping father, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), shoots self-made targets in the woods with a rifle, dressed in suit and tie.

Alec Baldwin plays Mickey, Scott's father, whose underappreciated wife, Brenda (Jill Hennessy), duct-tapes her youngest son from head to toe to protect him from Lyme disease. Periodic cutaways to wandering deer and the real or imagined threat of wood ticks -- not to mention scenes of believably harsh marital bickering -- serve the pic's point that these frightened, emotionally starved people, kids included, are animals at best.


Read the entire review of Lymelife from Variety online.