Don't Bother Packing Your Bags

Cal (Billy Crudup) is the kind of guy you don't want to marry. You don't want your best friend to marry him either. In fact, you don't even want your husband to be friends with this guy. He's a womanizer and a borderline alcoholic who drags those around him into his black hole of useless ribaldry.

The concept of the movie has great potential to explore the depths of the so-called "quarter-life crisis" of successful people in their late-twenties and early thirties, but writer/director Bart Freundlich (The Myth of Fingerprints) fails to create a sympathetic lead character and draws few conclusions on the conditions that lead to this personal crisis.

Finally settling down in what appears to be his early thirties, Cal begins the movie in New York City with his wife and pre-school-aged child. He quickly takes to the road, settling temporarily in Pennsylvania. Following his womanizing instincts, Cal sleeps with his waitress at a diner, and she leads him to some temporary work at a construction site.

There, Cal meets up with Carl, the most profound character in the movie, played deftly by Cleavant Derricks. Cal drags Carl out to bars after work to pick up women, despite the fact Carl is a married recovering alcoholic. After taking a drunk Carl back to his wife, Cal tries to sleep with her, of course. Unfortunately--because it spells the end of Carl's much need presence in the film--she rebuffs him and he skips town.

A long winding middle section thoroughly devoid of good acting follows Cal's departure from Pennsylvania, and he spends much of his time with delusional Dulcie (Julianne Moore, in some of the worst acting of her career).

He finally makes it to Oregon and reconnects with his father, who is also a womanizer and once upon a time deserted his young son and wife. After this understood, but unstated, realization of his wrong choice to leave home, Cal returns to an unrealistically warm welcome from his wife and son.