Unstrung Heroes

Not your basic tearjerker, but a quirky child's-eye view of a mother's death and the ensuing domestic chaos. An impressionable 12-year-old (Nathan Watt) flees his dismal family home, where his bereaved father (John Turturro) and kid sister (Kendra Krull) are too wrapped up in their own troubles to bother with his. He winds up in the cramped apartment of his bachelor uncles (Maury Chaykin and Seinfeld's Michael Richards), whose eccentric lifestyle is rapidly slipping into lunacy. Diane Keaton chose difficult material for her directing debut, and UNSTRUNG HEROES is constantly in danger of becoming either sentimental or just plain weird. But she handles it deft...