Friday, August 24, 2007

Closing Escrow is "hilarious"

CLOSING ESCROW.
Mockumentary about three couples on stressful house-hunting tours in L.A. (1:33) Rated PG: language, crude humor. At the Quad. 3 stars

Nobody is suffering more from the housing crunch than Armen Krapelian and Kent G. Llewellyn, whose first film is a hilarious Christopher Guest-style mockumentary about people looking for homes during a housing boom.

If you have your house up for sale, it may be too painful to watch, but it really is funny, thanks to a terrific script by the co-writer/co-directing team and the dead-pan performances of the mostly unknown cast, which forms three quirky couples and three even quirkier real estate agents.

One of the agents likes to destroy the houses they visit in order to bring down their value. One of the house hunters leaves dead rabbits at homes to encourage sellers to sell. If you can watch it without weeping over your own predicament, you'll see some serious talent bursting out.

- Jack Mathews
from The New York Daily News

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