I loved Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls and he’s been on my radar since the early mumblecore days. This was shot during the pandemic and is basically a formal experiment – the results of which are pretty uneven. If you didn’t know what the experiment was going in, I’d be curious to hear your impressions. I wrote about it for Ebert. You didn’t expect me to review a movie called There There and not pull in Gertrude Stein, did you.
Reading your review, I can only conclude that the film is not involving enough for one’s mind to disengage in questioning the film’s methods. Great dialogue should be immersive. Like the spectacularly engrossing Danish film The Guilty, the characters are never in the same place, but communicating over a phone. I suppose that’s a different dynamic, but seems like similar difficulties also apply to There There.
Shawn – interesting thoughts!
I agree with you that experiments in form can work wonderfully well – I am thinking of Locke, the entirety of which takes place in a car – with just one person on the phone the whole time. and it is gripping.
It definitely can be done – but I think it requires a more confident hand – and sometimes an experiment isn’t meant to be shared. It’s a way to keep the motor running – like writing exercises – which I love, as a way to jumpstart inspiration. But I wouldn’t dream of sharing those things!!