''The Answer Man'' (previously titled ''The Dream of the Romans'' and ''Arlen Faber'') is a 2009 American

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film written and directed by John Hindman and starring Jeff Daniels, Lauren Graham and

Lou Taylor Pucci Lou Taylor Pucci (born July 27, 1985) is an American actor who first appeared on film in Rebecca Miller's ''Personal Velocity: Three Portraits'' in 2002. Pucci had his breakthrough leading role in ''Thumbsucker (film), Thumbsucker'' (2005), for wh ...

. The film premiered at the

2009 Sundance Film Festival The 2009 Sundance Film Festival was held during January 15, 2009 until January 25 in Park City, Utah. It was the 25th iteration of the Sundance Film Festival. Award winners *Grand Jury Prize: Documentary - '' We Live in Public'' *Grand Jury Prize ...

. The film received negative reviews.

Plot

Reclusive author Arlen Faber wrote a best-selling spiritual book, ''Me and God'', but rejects the celebrity it has brought him and lives anonymously in Philadelphia. He jealously guards his identity and refuses to cooperate with his publisher, who wishes him to help publicize the 20th anniversary of the book's release. However, his identity is gradually revealed to a mail carrier, bookstore owner Kris, and chiropractor Elizabeth. Arlen is reluctantly drawn into relationships with Kris and Elizabetheach of whom has their own problems. Kris is an alcoholic who is just out of rehab and who is troubled by the impending failure of his bookstore and his father's persistent alcoholism. Elizabeth and her seven-year-old son were abandoned by her husband, causing her to be overprotective of the boy. She has moved to Philadelphia to open a chiropractic clinic and start her life anew. A back injury causes Arlen to crawl to the clinic for help. Elizabeth fixes his back problem and the two of them begin awkwardly dating. She is reticent to become involved because of her concern for her son and having been left by her husband. He is an emotional mess, largely because of the death of his father from Alzheimer's. Despite writing a spiritual book about conversations with God, he is spiritually adrift and seeks answers to difficult questions. He charms her, but he also says inappropriate, abrasive things that almost doom the relationship. Kris and Arlen make a deal where they trade books for answers to questions. Each day, Arlen gives books to Kris to sell and allows him to ask him a single question about spiritual matters. Arlen's newfound relationships come to a crisis when Kris's father dies and he shows up at Arlen's house for solace while Elizabeth is there. She comforts Kris, but Arlen is emotionally blocked and unable to provide sympathy, which appalls Elizabeth. The crisis impels Arlen to change. He arranges to have his book's new release held at Kris's bookstoreseemingly saving it from bankruptcy. At the book's release, he reveals the impact of his father's death to both Elizabeth and fans of his book. He tells them that he does not speak with God, that he had many questions after his father's death and did his best to come up with some answers. Elizabeth is touched by Arlen's revelation, but she still does not trust him and runs from the bookstore. Arlen pursues her and they have an emotional reconnection. They agree to make a new attempt at a relationship and are last seen walking down the sidewalk together.

Cast

* Jeff Daniels as Arlen Faber * Lauren Graham as Elizabeth *

as Kris Lucas *

Thomas Roy Thomas Roy (born November 30, 1944) is an American film, television and Voice acting, voice actor. Early life Roy was born in the suburbs surrounding Philadelphia and raised in Hatboro, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Pennsyl ...

as Riley Lucas *

Olivia Thirlby Olivia Jo Thirlby (born October 6, 1986) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Leah in the comedy-drama film ''Juno'' (2007),Louie, Rebecca (June 28, 2008).Olivia Thirlby is smoking in 'The Wackness'". '' Daily News, location ...

as Anne *

Kat Dennings Katherine Victoria Litwack (born June 13, 1986), known professionally as Kat Dennings, is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles as Max Black in the CBS sitcom ''2 Broke Girls'' (2011–2017) and as Darcy Lewis in the Marvel ...

as Dahlia *

Nora Dunn Nora Dunn (born April 29, 1952) is an American actress and comedian. She was a cast member on the NBC sketch variety TV series '' Saturday Night Live'' from 1985 to 1990, Dr. Reynolds in ''The Nanny'' (1998-1999), and Muriel in '' Home Economic ...

as Terry Fraser * Max Antisell as Alex *

Tony Hale Anthony Russell Hale (born September 30, 1970) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his role in the Fox comedy series '' Arrested Development'' as Buster Bluth. Hale played Gary Walsh on the HBO comedy ''Veep'' from 2012 until ...

as Mailman

Production

Filming, using the working title ''The Dream of the Romans'', began on March 23, 2008, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, and ended in June 2008. Philadelphia native

plays the alcoholic father of the character played by

Reception

''The Answer Man'' received negative reviews.

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gives it a score of 30% based on 46 reviews, with an

average rating In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

of 5.06/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "''The Answer Man'' takes an interesting premise and overloads it with implausible scenarios, indie comedy cliches, and an all-too-familiar story arc that only occasionally benefits from its typically capable actors."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

reports a score of 44/100 based on 16 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Answer Man 2009 films 2009 directorial debut films 2009 romantic comedy films American romantic comedy films Films set in bookstores Films about spirituality Films about writers Films scored by Teddy Castellucci Films set in Philadelphia Films shot in Philadelphia 2000s English-language films 2000s American films