A touching but slight little film, Alex Lehmann’s Paddleton feels right at home in its inauspicious Netflix release. Starring Mark Duplass and Ray Romano in what seem like less-and-less “uncharacteristic” dramatic roles ever-so-lightly tinged with comedy, the movie’s main strength stems from their rapport, which feels authentic and lived-in, largely escaping artifice. The plot, such as it is, details a too-little portrayed course of action after a terminal diagnosis—and admirably mostly resists the mawkish uplift that tends to temper these sorts of stories. There’s certainly (and almost unavoidably) a bit of melodrama, as well as a coda that rings a bit rote, but by and large—and particularly when Duplass and Romano are given license to bounce off one another in their believably grubby environs—there’s a low-key hum of codependent desperation that comes off quite believable, and helps inform the gripping tragedy of the final act. You get the sense that these characters are clinging to each other in no small part due to having nothing else—but hey, hasn’t proximity forced many a friendship? Ironically, the very casting of these leads may be the same thing that vaguely undercuts the film—had Lehmann cast two unknowns, or at least lesser “names,” things might have felt even more genuine, the verisimilitude amplified by lack of recognizable stars from the sitcom circuit. Then again, had that been the case, who knows whether the film, which truly seems to do justice to an under-told tale, would have even made it to Netflix, let alone Sundance?
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