Nobel Son
Nobel Son stars the loveable Alan Rickman playing a very unlikeable character. He’s Professor Eli Michaelson PhD soon to be Nobel laureate of chemistry, an accolade that makes him even more insufferable. Mary Steenburgen is Sarah a crackerjack lawyer and Eli’s long suffering wife. The family dynamic is explored through their son Barkley (Bryan Greenberg) the apple of his mother’s eye but as an anthropology student studying cannibalism a bitter disappointment to his father. We meet Barkley while he’s being mysteriously stalked while trying to bed (on a budget) a nutty beat poet and artist who goes by the name of City Hall (Eliza Dushku). Barkley’s stalker is Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosy) who turns into his sadistic kidnapper in order to extort the Nobel Prize money from a reluctant Eli. It eventually turns out that most of these characters have an intimate connection that gradually unfolds thanks to the diligent police work of detective Max Mariner (Bill Pullman) who by the way has a thing going on with Sarah. Once the ransom is paid via a nifty Austin mini shopping mall switcheroo, a brainy game of whose-on-top? ensues to see who gets to spend the cash. The sometimes grizzly Nobel Son isn’t so much an intellectual treat but a clever caper film just the same.