Mack Prescott is torn when it comes to his future plans after graduating high school. Fast forward 25 years and Mack (Egglesfield) is now a high school graduate and seems to be deeply confused about what his life is slowly turning out to be. So far, it is the day of a high school reunion that he is set to host at a used to belong to his wife’s parents. As a lot of his teenage friends, some of them he has not talked to for years, start arriving, he begins to understand that he is not alone in having problems. Casey’s twin brother Carter (King), for example, drinks too much and is unhappily married. Meanwhile, his wife, Lydia (King) Dick (Gray-Stanford) is constantly struggling financially. Teenager sweethearts Casey (Cooke) and Sam (Blair) seem to be really excited to revive their romance after years of separation. Only Marty (Blevins), who suffered a terrible personal tragedy the night everyone was last together, seems to still be happy and sober. As time goes by, Mack slowly starts to understand what it means to be happy and the reasons for people being where they are in life.
With that short summary, you might be inclined to say, Uh-oh, not yet another story about a bunch of middle-class xenophobic, selfish men reliving the golden days of the past while staying inside their luxurious homes.
You would be correct, this falls under that genre. Luckily, Odiorne provides just enough of a twist on the concept to make this film a gently amusing once-over of a mid-life existential crisis. The drama unfolds in fits and starts, and in some of the various sub-plots surrounding Mack and Emily’s fractured marriage, he cheats on her so she doesn’t resolve themselves as satisfactorily as others. It feels like the run time was not determined by the script’s length, but rather by the tight budget, which is why those sub-plots feel underdeveloped. A great example is Marty, who has a wonderful first scene and is introduced as a significant character, but fails to go any further after arriving at the house. Instead, he helps to almost completely remove a minor character in a rather pathetic way. It’s like Odiorne had so many fantastic ideas, but didn’t know how to execute all of them.
He likes the movie is far more successful with the comic aspects. There is a layer of humor, from Carter’s relentless drinking to Dick’s pathetic attempts at soliciting, that is quite humorous. While he does make fun of his characters, Odiorne makes their unhappiness and perceived failures comical. It is cruel in places, yet far sharper than if we were simply seeing their sorrow as outright drama. This makes room for a number of entertaining portrayals, with Benjamin King and Whelan particularly outstanding, while other Cooke, Blair, and Blevins are great but do not get the chance to flesh out their parts to greater benefit. A significant injustice has been set right, albeit a bit too effortlessly, the challenges have been dealt with, And there is that prop moment that borders on grotesque but with the help of the actress was somehow saved. It is these few moments, which have the potential to illustrate what Odiorne would do if provided with a larger budget and a more polished script.
The effort to satirize the self-indulgent behavior of the characters in their material was lacking, and the running time of the show was not sufficient to provide satisfactory conclusions to the multitudes of sub-plots within the show. Regardless, this was Odiorne’s initial attempt at writing and directing, so he was adequate as far as performing the tasks was concerned. The Middle of X will probably not attract many people because of its blandness, but for those willing to undertake the challenge, there are enough benefits to make the effort worthwhile.
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