Little has flummoxed cinephiles like the curious case of David Gordon Green, a writer-director who started his career with George Washington and All The Real Girls, poetic visions of youth that had him looking like Terrence Malick’s heir apparent, but has lately resigned himself to major-studio slacker comedies like Pineapple Express and the unfortunate Your Highness. Green’s latest, The Sitter, seemingly falls firmly in the latter camp, as it once again champions an oafish layabout (Jonah Hill) who’s dragged into an adventure kicking and screaming. Yet in its best moments—and there are several good ones scattered across this ramshackle comedy—The Sitter is a reminder that Green’s sensibility has always been heavy on whimsy and play, and that maybe he hasn’t strayed that far from home. Trouble is, when you’re paying feature-length homage to Adventures In Babysitting, rather than something like Malick’s Days Of Heaven, the ceiling gets awfully low.
