Review: Cloris Leachman can’t save low-energy ‘This Is Happening’

Aptly titled in the passive voice, writer-director Ryan Jaffe’s indie comedy-drama “This Is Happening” operates at such a negligible pace it barely qualifies as a moving picture. It’s a bickering-siblings tale in which people do things and say things because it’s in a script, rather than out of any believable or engaging desire.

Uptight Philip (James Wolk) is told by his manipulative dad (Judd Nelson) to go to Palm Springs and put his irascible, cursing grandmother (who else, Cloris Leachman) into a nursing home. So he does. That was simple.

Philip’s inert, pot-dealing pill of a sister Megan (Mickey Sumner) tags along, mostly it seems to tease Philip about his life and nagging girlfriend. Then grandma escapes their clutches, driving off, unwittingly, with a stash of Megan’s weed, after which the oil-and-water pair halfheartedly look for her. That’s about it.

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It’s the type of airless indie that needs Megan to steal from a convenience store (after baring her breasts to the clerk) just to keep you awake, and which has Philip calling his one-note-nag girlfriend an unprintable anti-female slur as a breakthrough sign of personal growth. Insert sigh.

Leachman’s facility with the wackadoodle senior is ever-admirable, but even she can’t save the low-energy, charm-free thud that is “This Is Happening.”

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“This Is Happening.”

No MPAA rating.

Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle’s Town Center 5, Encino.

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