The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards
By Joyce Slaton,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Sex, drugs in mature, meandering tales of varying quality.

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The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards
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What's the Story?
A man visits his hometown after his dad has a stroke, and he learns a secret about an old girlfriend. A house cleaner escapes her dull workday life through vivid fantasies. A trio of teens kills a few hours making up stories about their nonexistent sex lives. Based on short stories from Robert Boswell's book (also named THE HEYDAY OF THE INSENSITIVE BASTARDS), this collection of seven vignettes explores gender, family bonds, the hold that your history has on the present, and other topics. Made for a 2012 filmmaking class by actor James Franco, the film features Franco and many other well-known actors, including Kristen Wiig, Natalie Portman, Keir Gilchrist, and Amber Tamblyn.
Is It Any Good?
Critics frequently dismiss movies by comparing them to student films -- and watching this meandering series of unconnected stories, which was literally Franco's student film, demonstrates why. Franco has assembled a very talented cast (just which favors did he have to call in from his A-list friends?), but since the seven vignettes showcased here are of such widely varying quality -- and since it's unclear exactly how they're connected or what conclusions we're supposed to draw from them being grouped together -- the whole movie is a bit of a forehead-wrinkler.
The best of the stories connect with viewers due to the actors' idiosyncratic charm. Wiig, always fun to watch, brings a little sparkle to her part as an outwardly sedate single mom/aspiring actress working as a house cleaner, whose inner life is full of satin sheets and red carpets. Jacob Loeb is compelling as a dead-eyed kid who moves to a new town hoping to find some fun and a girlfriend and instead becomes embroiled in a cover-up. But in between, there are a lot of "where is this going?" moments and clunky dialogue, the worst of which is uttered by poor Tamblyn as an off-balance sister. "The combined IQ of a colony of ants exceeds that of the average U.S. senator," she says, before telling a metaphorical story about a pair of famous monkeys who became a fish and a bird who could no longer understand each other's language. Franco completists will be the main audience for The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, a curiosity that ultimately doesn't go much of anywhere.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the setup of The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards. Are the stories in the movie connected to each other? How? What conclusions can we draw from the fact that they're grouped together in one film?
Do you consider any of the characters role models? Why or why not?
How does the movie portray substance use (drinking, smoking, drugs)? Is it glamorized? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?
Actor James Franco, who stars in the film's first chapter, produced this movie as a class assignment for a filmmaking class. Does that information surprise you or make sense, having seen the movie?
The stories in this movie are based on a book. Have you read it? Does it improve your appreciation of a movie to have read the book it's based on?
Movie Details
- In theaters: October 27, 2017
- On DVD or streaming: November 28, 2017
- Cast: James Franco, Kristen Wiig, Abigail Spencer, Thomas Mann, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn
- Directors: Mark Columbus, Lauren Hoekstra, Sarah Kruchowski, Ryan Moody, Simon Savelyev, Vanita Shastry, Shadae Lamar Smith, Jeremy David White, Jonathan King
- Studio: Cinedigm
- Genre: Drama
- Topics: Book Characters
- Run time: 97 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: June 1, 2023
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