Review: ‘My Last Year With the Nuns’ overshares its coming-of-age tale
Adapted from his 1997 one-man show about being a 13-year-old in Seattle circa 1966, Matt Smith’s “My Last Year With the Nuns” makes for a colorful if occasionally uncomfortable coming-of-age self-portrait.
Smith and his classmates often would catch heck from the sisters at St. Joseph, but his theatrical roman à clef is more concerned with life outside the Capitol Hill Catholic school, involving hocking loogies, smoking cigarettes and telling dirty jokes in the newspaper shack that served as a makeshift clubhouse.
Director Bret Fetzer does a nice job opening up the piece, mixing outdoor locations and animations into the traditional staging. But Smith, who physically reminds one of the late Spalding Gray, runs into some difficulty when addressing the more racist elements of his segregated neighborhood.
Lacking the richly delineated caricature skills of a John Leguizamo and the affable vulnerability of a David Sedaris, Smith’s delivery can have a smugness that occasionally crosses the line into something more awkward when he attempts to imitate some of his African American cohorts.
Like an uncle making a long-winded, embarrassing toast to the bride, Smith may have a lot of defining childhood memories at his disposal, but that doesn’t mean they all need to be shared.
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‘My Last Year With the Nuns’
No MPAA rating
Running time: 1 hour, 19 minutes
Playing: Arena Cinema, Hollywood
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