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Short of an environmental apocalypse wiping out the world’s electronic networks, our species will never face any kind of dearth of Little Family Dramedies With Big Hearts. These types of films have been a staple ever since Alan Ayckbourn turned the living-room into the kind of emotional hippodrome that Ordinary People helped to popularize onscreen. While the latter doesn’t exactly adhere to the dramedy category, many of its features have been co-opted by lighter, Ayckbourn-ized versions of itself over the years: the Awkward Youth On The Cusp of Manhood (the one somehow Burdened With His Parent’s Glitch), the Filibustering Mom With The Destructive Yet Loveable Quirk, the Heartfelt Teary Talk That Makes It All Better. Cherie Nowlan’s Introducing the Dwights easily slots itself into this genre by hitting all the right notes—often with enough force to set a new record for splatter radius. Reviewing Will Self’s How the Dead Live for the New York Times back in 2000, Tom Shone famously quipped, “Throw this book at a wall and it will stick.” The fact that this bon mot surfaced in my mind as I watched Nowlan’s film should be your first and best clue.
