Amidst scorching summer heat in New York City, there are many who would kill for a working air conditioning unit. If you’ve seen “Notice to Quit”, Simon Hacker’s father-daughter comedy, then you may understand why the main character, a real estate broker on what seems to be ‘the worst day ever’, is so constantly lured back to the beauty that the simple prospect of having an AC unit brings. A lot separated by the five boroughs of the city, Hackers’ maniacal film emulates his instructors, the Safdie brothers, but misses the point exactly what that Ac unit would alleviate the view of us sweating.
Andy Singer (played by Michael Zegen in the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) is climbing the walls. He has never thought that an acting career could lead him to be the star of a tooth’s whitening ad campaign that every passerby seems to recognize. A job he was never cut out for, being a broker, rakes in more losses as clients scatter the moment they see the properties he has for them. Peddling used ovens from those apartments to some dubious dealer for ample rewards also becomes increasingly more difficult as the sub-images Ms. Derek bombard him with. As if that isn’t enough, he has been thrown out for not paying rent at the same time that his absent ten-year-old daughter brings him the news that she and her mother plan to move to Orlando.
With an appropriate irony, let’s note that even the beginning of Andy’s day when he manages to get coffee stains on his shirt is what the filmmakers want the audience to appreciate a little bit too much. To be quick: Notice to Quit features a rather sad sack of an abandoned father, and yes, one might feel sympathy towards him, even though his actions deserve none. Now, the two main characters that make life miserable are Andy and his daughter Anna (Kasey Bella Suarez) whom he drags around the city all day.
While this might come off as a charming premise a father who is hopelessly struggling with bad life choices and tries to spend time with his daughter to get some much needed bonding from her. One would find the premise unbearably sugar-coated if interacted with two-bit Realtors such as in this city. This feeling is emphasized by Mika Altskan’s unnaturally close and relentless camera pointing attention to every object on every street and every chair in every subway of New York.
Despite this, it feels that Andy and Anna’s day together is unwarrantedly neat even in the constant filth they interact with. This is a city that gets you dirty and does the dirtiest of things, still there is a strange sterility to the depiction of one of the main protagonists in the movie that is hard to ignore.
In New York, the word broker includes countless terms that can make the most intelligent individuals angry and the least suspicious ones very angry as well, as it is synonymous with being scammed. “Putting gel in your hair and saying you work does not work,” Andy’s ex-wife jokes. “I use mousse,” Andy retorts, more humorous remarks that help to emphasize how clueless Andy appears to be as to the numerous frauds and frauds that have until now ensured his survival.
Nevertheless, Hacker and Zegen can never really resolve the issue of being too strictly committed to how Andy plays himself. It’s not his fault, he’s simply failed the life lottery. It’s always been , and it will always be, someone else’s fault. This is the view that serves as ‘justification’ for the level of his agency. Even when his daughter chastises him for surreptitiously using a cockroach to escape a diner tab ((and to most likely jeopardize the cook’s job there), Andy pays his daughter little notice: “That was an opportunity, not a crime.”
This movie is painfully obvious, it knows that Andy fails because it is in fact the core part of the act which is no longer effective.
Yet, that does not make ninety minutes spent frustratingly believing that he can be a somewhat better father or a shrewder businessman any less amusing, with the two possibilities seemingly being an oxymoron. If only Zegen and Suarez had more sizzling chemistry. Their onscreen interactions, as awkward as they were, did nothing to help the movie particularly as the Andy Anna couple was getting along better as the story progresses.
“Notice to Quit” presents an interesting subject matter but creates a false sense of enjoyment as if it is a captivating sitcom rather than real life. It is an excellent scenario but Fertig is too lenient with it and forgets the scenarios to make it worth watching let alone want to desire it. A good film for sure, but there may not be much in there for both odd and exciting entertainment.
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