Lou Howe’s “Gabriel” tries so hard to turn its protagonist into a modern day Holden Caulfield, that it seems to forget its hero still must exist in a universe populated by least important characters. Rory Culkin plays the title role, a troubled young man who we first meet as he tries to find Alice (Emily Meade) his alleged fiancée. It is only once we meet his brother Matthew (David Call) who takes him home to their mother Meredith (Dierdre O’Connell) that we find out that Gabriel in fact suffers from an unnamed mental illness that makes it hard for him to differentiate fact from fiction.

When they threaten to send him back to an institution, Gabriel runs away and spends a Caulfield-esque day in the city where he plots how to find his way back to his betrothed. Culkin is in practically every scene in the film, and his face - familiar because we have literally seen him grow up onscreen - displays new features that show how much his technique has also matured, but when juxtaposed with the subtle work of everyone else in the cast (especially national treasure Lynn Cohen who plays his grandmother), his performance reaches a point where it feels grating and insufferable.

Perhaps, first-time director, Howe intended to make Gabriel so obviously different from the other characters that he pushed him towards acting completely out-of-the-box (a technique that has worked in the past but should only be attempted by masters) but the performance lacks conviction, his kind of crazy isn’t crazy enough. The film begins with an interesting premise but by the end it seems that it’s a showcase in which we’re forced to watch everyone else pretend Culkin is giving a great performance.