Touchy Feely

Cast of Characters:

Abby - Rosemarie Dewitt

Bronwyn - Allison Janney

Adrian - Ron Livingston

Jesse - Scoot McNairy

Jenny - Ellen Page

Paul - Josh Pais

Director - Lynn Shelton

Screenplay - Lynn Shelton

Rated R for language, some drug use and brief sexuality

      Rosemarie Dewitt, Scoot McNairy, Josh Pais and Academy Award nominee Ellen Page star in writer/director Lynn Shelton's Touchy Feely. 

      Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt), is an in demand massage therapist and free spirit, while her polar opposite brother Paul (Josh Pais) lives for routine and convention, running a slumping dental practice and co-dependently enlisting the assistance of his emotionally stunted daughter Jenny (Ellen Page). Suddenly, transformation touches everyone. Abby develops an uncontrollable aversion to bodily contact, which not only makes her occupation impossible but severely hinders the passionate love life between her and her boyfriend Jesse (Scoot McNairy).

      Meanwhile, rumors of Paul’s so called “healing touch” with TMJ (Temporomandibular joint disorder) begin to miraculously invigorate his practice as well as his life outside the office. As Abby navigates her way through a soul-searching identity crisis, her formerly skeptical brother discovers a whole new side of himself.

      Over the past five or so years, writer/director Lynn Shelton has made two films - Humpday and Your Sister's Sister - that I really enjoyed. With Touchy Feely, Shelton presents us with a uniformly talented cast that unfortunately, unlike her past films, is let down by a rather weak script. We're introduced to some interesting characters with interesting situations (such as Paul being viewed by the locals as some Messianic miracle worker for his TMJ touch), but the problem is Shelton never really resolves these conflicts. We never quite go in depth into the how and why Abby all of a sudden has an aversion to bodily contact. Jenny clearly isn't happy with the way her life is going, yet we only scratch the surface there. There's not enough Allison Janney here, especially when her and Pais together is one of the high points, and Ron Livingston shows up and is gone before we can even get to really know his character. It's as if Shelton set up all these scenarios and then didn't quite know how to bring them to a conclusion, so she leaves them as is. It's one thing to have a loose end here and there. You can forgive that. It's a whole other story to leave everything open ended like Shelton does here. It's a shame 'cause if you've seen the previous two films by Shelton that I mentioned above, you know she's a talented filmmaker. The cast saves this film from going completely off the rails, and to be fair, it starts out great. It's just too bad that it ends on a rather abrupt low note and leaves us with too many questions unanswered.

      Somewhere there's a great movie buried deep inside Touchy Feely, but it just never comes to the surface. We certainly get a few inspired moments here and there, particularly from Josh Pais in a wonderfully quirky and awkward performance. He certainly hits it out of the park, but it's still not enough for me to recommend beyond a rental. I give Touchy Feely a C+ (★★½).