Diminished Capacity

This first feature by character actor and theater director Terry Kinney addresses, once again, America's apparent surfeit of sweet-souled losers and eccentrics, replete with rueful indie Muzak. Cooper (Matthew Broderick), a Chicago newspaperman still held back at work by a recent concussion, returns to hometown rural Missourah to check up on a precarious relation. Old Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda) has raised concern in the family with his habit of deciphering the "poetry" written by fish through his ingeniously rigged typewriter. Rollie's only steady thought amid an Alzheimer's crumble: to sell a prized-possession baseball card. On the resulting journey, Broderick's reticence barely registers, but relief comes through the deep supporting lineup, particularly the characters populating a collector's convention (Dylan Baker, Bobby Cannavale). It's the kind of movie you go and see with your mom, and she'll say she liked it. Two and a half shrugs.