The Discoverers

You know you’re in unfamiliar territory — intelligent comedy territory – the moment Griffin Dunne (“After Hours”) and Madeleine Martin (“Californication”) start their father-daughter verbal jousting. Dunne plays down-and-out history professor Lewis Birch, who is trying desperately to publish his life’s work (a 6,000-page tome on the slave who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their Pacific expedition) with any old academic press. In a last-ditch bid to salvage his career, Lewis drags his cynical teenage kids on a road trip to an academic conference. But Lewis’s mom dies suddenly, and her delusional husband Stanley disappears into the woods with a troop of Lewis and Clark historical re-enactors. Lewis and the disbelieving kids don homespun clothes and coonskin caps and dive into the underbrush to save Stanley from life as a backwoodsman. As they embark on their passage West, each member of the dysfunctional band finds out something new about him-or-herself. Splendid cinematography and laugh-out-loud repartee make THE DISCOVERERS one of the best discoveries of the year. – B.B.