MyAvatar Sad, poignant, and rich, this quiet film will give you a glimpse of the human condition from the unique voice of Stephen Berra who writes and directs. He has created something to be forever proud and for those of us that run across it over time on NetFlix (or like I did recently on The Movie Channel) to be thankful for.The presence of wonderful actors including Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, and Zooey Deschanel should draw people to this film and the excellent acting and writing will hold them until its end.Mark Webber is warm and believable as the young man stuck in a Nebraska town that is frigid both physically and existentially.Zooey creates a memorable character and even briefly sings in this film which is always a delight. Give this one a try. It will not waste your time.

tigerfish50 Jason Prayer lives his sad life as a round peg in the square black hole of college football-obsessed Lincoln, Nebraska. Writer/director Stephen Berra has provided his hero with plenty of bizarre baggage so that an audience can easily tag him as one of Indie Film's stereotypical oddball protagonists. He suffers from alopecia, an auto-immune disorder which has left him completely hairless. His father has committed suicide, and he lives with his mother in a shabby house besieged by the electricity company's debt collectors - and he works the day shift at a gas station where he's terrorized by a muscle car maniac. Jason's evenings are spent assisting the senile owner of a decaying cinema, where vintage movies are projected over empty auditoriums. His prospects perk up when beautiful, warmhearted Indie-girl Frances shows up at the theater, and recognizes him as a kindred spirit. Later that night she drives him home after he gets beaten up by the psychotic motor-head, but unfortunately the course of true love never runs smoothly for sensitive Indie heroes. By the end of the film it's uncertain whether Frances is escaped-from-an-asylum crazy, or a figment of Jason's imagination created by too many nights at the movies. Either way, she's the catalyst that prompts him to embark on a mythic Indie quest for a Golden Fleecy life beyond freezing wintry Nebraska - and that can't be all bad.

MBunge This film serves no constructive or productive purpose. Writer/director Steve Berra might have thought he had a good reason for telling this story. For all I know, there was such a reason, at least at some point in production. After watching The Good Life, however, I can find no justification or rationale for its existence. It's well enough made for what it is, but it never answers the most fundamental questions about itself. Why should people watch this movie? Why should they care about anything that happens? What is the viewer supposed to get out of it?Jason Prayer (Mark Webber) is a 20something kid living in Nebraska. He's worked the last 7 years as a gas station attendant. He's also the main support for his broken down mother (Deborah Rush) and Gus (Harry Dean Stanton), the owner of the old movie theater where Jason also works. Gus suffers from Alzheimer's or just has a profound aversion to pants. Either way, he's even more dependent on Jason than his mom. Jason is harassed by Tad Tokas (Chris Klein), another 20something Nebraskan who's so angry at life he can barely contain it, and romanced by Frances (Zooey Deschannel), a pretty young woman who latches onto him like a lovesick lamprey and then breaks his heart to soothe her upper middle class unhappiness. Jason also suffers from an immune disorder that causes all of his hair to fall out. Oh, and his dad just died and left him a present which Jason refused to open. Needless to say, The Good Life is not exactly a laugh riot.There's something vaguely resembling a plot at work here but honestly, this story is about how Jason's life sucks and keeps on sucking until falling into an ending that's supposed to teach us something about the resiliency of the human spirit or some such claptrap. Outside of a skimpy, unformed and ill thought out analysis of the sociological importance of college football in Nebraska, which comes off as the remnants of a more significant element in an early draft of the script, The Good Life does nothing but ask us to genuflect before the quiet desperation of Jason Prayer. To which I can only respond...why should I give a crap?It's a simple query that far too few indy filmmakers ask themselves. Why should I give a crap about Jason Prayer? Why should I give a crap about how his life has turned out? Why should I give a crap that he's unhappy? Jason takes care of his mom and Gus, proving he's a basically decent person, but so what? Why should I care more about Jason than Andrew (Patrick Fugit), his friend and fellow gas station attendant? Particularly when Andrew demonstrates a sense of humor about the poor state of his life, compared to Jason's sullen and somber stoicism. Why should I care more about Jason than the tormenting Tad? Even though Tad is cast as the villain and has far less time on screen, Chris Klein powerfully demonstrates though Tad's disturbingly aggressive behavior that his life sucks and he's just as unhappy or more so than Jason.Writer/director Berra failed to do the most basic sort of storytelling to try and make me people care about Jason. The most obvious way to generate sympathy or empathy for such a character is to show the audience what he's given up or lost to end up where he is. It's not enough to stick Jason with two menial jobs and a couple of near helpless adults. You've got to let the audience see the opportunities Jason has lost by being dragged down with such responsibilities. It's that unfairness, that injustice, that mirror image of the audience's own lost possibilities that people will respond to. There's none of that in this movie. Yes, Jason's life is hard and disappointing. So what? There's never a second when you get the impression that Jason could ever be more than what he is if his life had turned out differently. I'm sure Berra felt some connection to his main character. He never builds such a connection between Jason and the folks watching The Good Life.There is a point where the lovely Zooey Deschannel takes her shirt off and a topless Zooey would have been all the reason in the world for this film to exist. Her hands cover up her breasts the entire time though, which makes it feel like Berra is just screwing with viewers.Outside of an awkward and cumbersome plot thread about Judy Garland, The Good Life is written with a certain amount of intelligence. The acting is perfectly fine and the direction is unobjectionable. I just can't think of any reason why anyone should spend their time and money to watch this film. There's nothing for anyone to get out of it.

jasonprayer Hell yes it's the new Donnie Dark, but the only problem is, it's a million times better. Mark Webber is unbelievable. UN-BE-LEIVABLE. I've been a fan of his since snow day. This movie is one of those movies in ten years every teenager will cite as being one of their favorite films. I guarantee that. I guarantee it. Jason Prayer (mark Webber's character) will be as famous as Donnie Darko. I attended the salt lake city screening of the movie and the crowd stood up and cheered when it was over. Steve Berra will be up there with any and every serious filmmaker that ever put an eye up to the camera. If you were looking for a new classic in modern day cinema and found the good life, I'd say you hit the jackpot. JP