Touchy Feely (2013)

Directed by: Lynn Shelton
Country: USA

Movie Review: After the relatively successful “My Sister’s Sister”, Lynn Shelton returns to screenwriting and direction with “Touchy Feely”, a sweetish drama about human connection, pursuit of happiness, and energy benefits. The story is focused on three relatives: Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt), a massage therapist whose occasional aversion to body contact hampers her from working or having a normal relationship, and is pondering to take ecstasy pills as a solution; her brother Paul (Josh Pais), a dentist whose apathy suddenly changes to a sort of healing touch after he has discovered reiki energy; and finally the latter’s daughter, Jenny (Ellen Page), who wants to study and is not happy to work for her father at the dental office. Shelton applied sad, depressive, and self-pity tones to depict all the characters, which was a bit annoying. The few times that she tried to take advantage on some humor, the scenes simply didn’t work, and the story remained lost in its despaired question of ‘what can I do with my life to feel better?’. In its final part, the confusion in the characters’ heads changed to a clear insight and the plot ran into a controlled mess of intentions and behaviors that seemed quite unbalanced. Ironically, by seeing so many disconnections, I wasn’t able to connect with this story. Perhaps a movie about the power of energy should have been less faint and more dynamic, with or without ecstasy pills...