In Memory Of My Father

If you’re a fan of jaundiced views of Hollywood or unedifying portraits of dysfunctional families, look no further than this debut from writer-director Christopher Jaymes. His hand-held, DV-shot black comedy was made over five days in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where the youngest son Chris (Jaymes) is filming the last hours of his dying film-producer father (David Austin).

Initially, the household is occupied only by the father’s young lover Judy (Judy Greer) and Chris’s volatile friend Pat (Pat Healy), but soon the place fills with a succession of feuding family and friends, each one more obnoxious than the last. Jaymes, both as the director of the film and the film-within-a-film does derive the odd moment of droll, absurd comedy at these sad people’s expense, but overall his film plays like a Cassavetes-lite ensemble film workshop, dubiously scored to Belle and Sebastian.