In that bygone era we called the ’70s, parents got wrapped up in their cocktail parties and sexual intrigue with the neighbors, leaving their children to raise themselves. It was pretty sweet.
Yet the tone of “The Playroom” is one of soppy moroseness. This imitation “Ice Storm” is as refreshing as a step into a puddle of slush.
Molly Parker and John Hawkes play the parents of four children in a bland 1975 suburb that, like pretty much all movie suburbs, masks ugly doings. Mom is a full-on drunk who openly flirts with the husband of a neighboring couple that comes over for drinkies every night; Dad is a mild-mannered lawyer with a slightly less obvious drinking problem who is doing his best to ignore everything that’s going on. The oldest daughter Maggie (Olivia Harris) watches unforgivingly as she and her three siblings retreat into a world of storytelling, imagining a place where children like themselves are precious treasures.
Like many an indie film, “The Playroom” mistakes its own lugubriousness for seriousness of message and a mere situation for story, yielding 75 creeping minutes in which less happens than in the average 22-minute sitcom. The appealing Harris wins the movie with her patient gaze and refusal to resort to histrionics, but Hawkes is wasted.