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Jason (Mark Webber) is a young lad with a slightly damaged psyche. Stuck in a Midwest Nebraskan town that is obsessed with college football, Jason holds down several menial jobs at a gas station and at a vintage movie theater, owned by a senile old man named Gus (Harry Dean Stanton). His family (Deborah Rush, Drea de Matteo, and Donal Logue) are about as dysfunctional and poor as possible, while his sadistic police officer of a father has just committed suicide.
One day, Jason meets several more odd people: an emotionless compulsive liar named Frances (played by an equally emotionless Zooey Deschanel -- can this woman actually act or not?); a creepy musical movie-loving theater patron called Robbie (portrayed by an equally creepy Bill Paxton); and a washed-up, burned-out and psychotic ex-high school football reject who goes by the handle Tad (brought to life by a washed-up, burned-out Chris Klein).
 Depressed yet? You will be if you sit down to watch The Good Life, a stretched out eighty-nine minute joyride into the very depths of despair that tries to redeem itself and cheer you up at the very end with a 180-degree-turn to an optimistic future for our tortured protagonist.
The Good Life isn’t a bad film, actually: there is some lovely acting in it (from the few contributors that choose to do so); the cinematography is fairly well-done; and the moody and gloomy music succeeds admirably in making one moody and gloomy. All of these elements make The Good Life an emotionally satisfying experience…too bad it’s a miserable experience.
Perhaps the plot points here just hit too close to home: there’s the dying old makeshift parental figure and the absence of any genuine parent; the kooky family that couldn’t ban together to figure out how to shut the door if a cold draft was wailing in; the asshole bully character who will never amount to anything but a waste of skin; some truly weird townsfolk; and, to top it all off, the lying cheating bitch…watching The Good Life was like going to high school all over again (only my town didn’t have a theater that showed old movies).
 Presentation
Despite the fact that it’s really not that bad of a film, The Good Life was doomed to a low-key release from Image Entertainment, who, instead of trying to capitalize on all of the good press the indie flick received (and it did -- like I say, it’s not that bad of a movie!), decided to boast the movie based solely on its one-time-big-name co-stars, reducing the movie’s main star (Mark Webber, in case you forgot) down to 6th billing on the front cover, and depicting the film as if it were another “guy has had enough and kills people” story (if we want to see that Image, we’ll turn on the news).
 That said, Image has done a pretty good job of transferring writer/director Steve Berra’s project to DVD. It’s a dark film overall (both in subject and in light), and most of the movie either takes place at night or in indirect sunlight…so don’t expect any colors beyond red, yellow, and orange. Two English-language soundtracks accompany the feature: 5.1 Dolby Digital, and 2.0 Surround. Neither really blew me away. English (SDH) and Spanish Subtitles are also available.
Extras
Image went all out with this one, folks: we get a Theatrical Trailer (1:59) that amplifies the movie’s toned-down sense of violence and there’s a look at Werner Herzog’s Encounters At The End Of The World at the beginning of the disc.
The Bottom Line
The Good Life has all of the potential to be a sleeper hit. Perhaps someday, it will be. But for now, it’s just a minor movie that made me miserable.
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