‘Thanksgiving’ at Rooftop Films: ‘Catnip for Hipsters’ finds stride
The first 20 minutes of “Thanksgiving” resemble an extended Vampire Weekend music video, but devoid of any self-mocking irony. Cliched fauxhemian archetypes prepare and then host an improbable thanksgiving dinner (not one of these childless transplants goes home to family?) for their similarly oblivious, seemingly insufferable yupster friends in an ornate apartment surrounded by antiquated accouterments, stilted dialogue, and copious drugs and alcohol.
But hold on: this new flick by director Adam Newport-Berra eventually evens out, and finds its stride.
Premiering Thursday evening as part of the Rooftop Films Summer Series, ‘Thanksgiving’ was screened at Industry City in Sunset Park, historically a manufacturing complex on the waterfront now in rapid transition, hoping to draw creative and young professional crowds.