Brooksian

Instead of a crazed Brooksian farce about life on the bottom rung, Life Stinks turns out to be a surprisingly low-key Chaplinesque fable.

"The Upside of Anger", written and directed by Mike Binder, clearly aspires to be a Brooksian comedy of manners, but instead it feels like a retread of several better movies, with a nastier, more bitter edge.