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C.O.G. Misses the Sedaris Mark But Here's to Trying

A A A Comments (0) By Sherilyn Connelly Wednesday, Sep 18 2013

<i>C.O.G.</i> Misses the Sedaris Mark But Here's to Trying

Location Info

Map

City Cinemas Village East Cinema

181-189 2nd Ave.
New York, NY 10012

Category: Movie Theaters

Region: East Village

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Film Society of Lincoln Center - Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center

144 W. 65th St.
New York, NY 10133

Category: Movie Theaters

Region: West 60s

Details

C.O.G.
Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez
Screen Media Films with DADA Films
Opens September 20, Village East and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Available on demand

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Kyle Patrick Alvarez's C.O.G. is the first film to be based on the work of David Sedaris. It's clearly a passion project for Alvarez, and the picture is faithful to the events of the autobiographical story "C.O.G.," about Sedaris working in rural Oregon to see how "real" people live (and to cheese off his father in the process). But the choice not to include narration robs the movie of Sedaris's voice, and consequently much of its joy, as does the decision to portray the character of David (Jonathan Groff) as a smug, Yale-educated atheist who's running away from home because his mother rejected him for being gay. What was very funny in print becomes serious and occasionally dour onscreen, with fewer laughs than you would expect from a Sedaris project. The faithfulness to the original story is almost jarring for those who've read it, since the character has been changed into an insufferable nozzle, playing up the worst stereotypes of the intellectual atheist, so when amusing, Sedaris–specific details appear, they no longer fit this version of David. Still, if C.O.G. opens the floodgates for Sedaris adaptations, here's hoping someone (maybe even Alvarez, who has the chops) will do justice to "The Santaland Diaries."

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