Nantucket Day 2  : Andrew Bujalski’s BEESWAX, Lynn Shelton’s HUMPDAY, Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary and Bradley Rust Gray’s THE EXPLODING GIRL

What a day! Today saw a trend of small, independent dramas that may or may not be a part of the “mumblecore” brand (I refuse to call it a movement) - save for Ghostbusters of course.

The first film I made my way to was Beeswax, the third film by the most praised director of a group of filmmakers who tell slice of life stories about 20 something white kids.  Andrew Bujalski first two films, Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation,  are both wandering stories about hip kids who can’t communicate and don’t seem to have too much responsibility.  With Beeswax he has moved in a different direction while still keeping his style in tact. And I for one am glad this is the case.  

The film is centered on a group of people and their efforts to cling to and to move away from each other. At the center of it all is Jeannie and her twin sister Lauren, played the real life non-actor twins Maggie and Tilly Hatcher.  Both girls are struggling with their dependence on each other, with their jobs and with the men in their lives.   Much of the film’s success lies in Tilly Hatcher’s Jeannie.  Her effortless performance really grounds the film and provides a sounding board of sorts for deciphering all of the other character’s problems.  Watching her navigate the politics of her thrift store and her on and off again boyfriend in Bujalski’s colorful film is suprisingly captivating and mezmorzing, at least for me

But no matter what you latch onto in the film, when it comes down to it, Beeswax is about the things that bring us down, the people that try to bring us up and the language we use to do it.

Following Beeswax I watched Lynn Shelton’s Humpday, the story of two old friends who find themselves in a tricky game of bromance chicken.  The first bro is Ben a happily married “square”ish man who is more than happy to forgo a night of sex when he’s tired. The second is his old friend Andrew, a free spirit who roams the globe, likes “art” and hasn’t seen Ben in a long time.  When Andrew arrives in the middle of Ben and his wife Anna’s sexless night, it leads to both men end up questioning who they’ve become.

The questioning comes after Ben joins Andrew at a local party of artists and bisexuals and agrees to shoot and star in a porn film with his old pal after drinking and smoking too much. The next day neither man can find it in himself to back down from the porn plan (both for different reasons) and from here on out they engage in a game of chicken to see who will save them both from the act. The film is witty and dynamic (I think in large part to the charisma of Joshua Leonard’s Andrew) and manages to not only entertain but also to dig into some of life’s deeper truths about what we give up as we get older.

Also of note was the character of Ben’s wife Anna.  It would have been easy to deny her character any real significance in the story but Shelton really allows her to flourish as her own person, with her own internal desires.  She, like the men in the film, is selfish and is contending with who she wants to be and who her choices in life have made her. I can’t imagine it’s a film that I’ll think about much in the future, but I definitely enjoyed my time watching it and the moments directly after.

After a morning of the trials and tribulations of being in one’s twenties, I headed out to a film that itself was celebrating being 25 years old, Ghostbusters.  We watched a gorgeous new 35mm print and after the film screenwriter and star Harold Ramis was on hand to talk about the film (click on the photos for more detail).  He was entertaining as always and put up with a room full of big Ghostbusters‘ fans.

The last film of the day was Bradley Rust Gray’s The Exploding Girl, a quiet film about what we hold in and the ways in which we let it all out.  The film stars the enigmatic Zoe Kazan as Ivy as a college freshman home in NYC for a week long break.  While home, she wanders around the city, navigates her friendship and potential romance with her best friend Al and tries to ignore signs that she might be having an epileptic seizure.

As much as the film is about Ivy it is also about the sounds and feel of the city and the how the noise and the chaos fill us up in a way that’s easier to see and feel than necessarily explain.   Listening to cut out cell phone calls and traffic while we view our protagonist through doors, windows and other city structures as she tries to figure out what it means to be an adult is a somewhat unnerving experience. More often than not I felt like I was on the verge of watching a horror film.

But in the end The Exploding Girl wins you over with warmness, innocence and illusions to Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Cafe Lumiere.  It reminds you that no matter how old you get there is always some growing up to be done and that holding hands is still the ultimate sign of affection.

Now on to The Cove (!!!) and The Messenger - more soon!