Nearly 30 years after Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,’’ Griffin Dunne plays a similarly frazzled — this time, middle-aged — character in Justin Schwarz’s impressive debut feature, which manages a fresh spin on the legion of indie comedy-dramas showcasing dysfunctional families.
Dunne is Lewis, a downwardly mobile Chicago college history professor who hopes to restart his flatlining academic career — and promote his forthcoming book, which, much to his publisher’s dismay, is pushing 6,000 pages in manuscript — by reading a paper at a West Coast conference.
Along for the road trip are his less-than-thrilled teenage kids (Madeleine Martin and Devon Graye), whose mom, Lewis’ ex, has just left for her honeymoon.
They’re barely on the road when Lewis’ overbearing and far more successful older brother (John C. McGinley) wheedles him into taking a detour to check on their folks, for whom Lewis has about as little affection for as his own kids have him at this point.
They arrive just in time for grandma’s death, which pushes Lewis’ dad (Stuart Margolin) over the edge — and into an obsession with a historical re-enactment, in the woods, of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
It’s up to Lewis and the very reluctant kids to try to lure Grandpa back to sanity by playacting in costume along with the cellphone-averse re-enactors, who are led by a very funny McGinley.
Further complicating things are a sexy re-enactor (Dreama Walker) who catches the son’s eye, as well as an older one (Cara Buono) who sparks with Lewis.
The performances are uniformly fine — Dunne, last seen as a disgraced doctor peddling AIDS drugs in Mexico in “Dallas Buyers Club’’ hasn’t had a role this good in years.
Writer-director Schwarz has a lot of fun with this nutty premise. And more important, the twisted dynamics of this particular family ring true.