You know how gmail has those little ads above your emails? It's called Web Clips, and Google has this way of reading into your messages for keywords and assuming something you may be interested in, then finding a link with a partner organization who you will hopefully click on and give them money. But every now and then Google gets it just right for me. They've had this link that's been showing up on my gmail for WEEKS that keeps saying, "Rotten Tomatoes: Mutual Appreciation, 100%" which, for those in the know, is moviespeak for "here's a movie that has never gotten a bad review." This is extremely rare for any movie, and even more rare for fiction films since critics usually don't have the same groupthink mentality for narratives as they do for documentaries. And for a film whose trailer gives you the oddly compelling feeling you are going to see a 1980s NYU student film - it is shot in black and white 16mm; it features hipsters wearing ill-fitting sweaters engaged in discussion of life's ironies - Mutual
Appreciation has pulled off an impressive coup of sorts with the critical attention it has gotten. The Mutual Appreciation website pointed me to Dupont Circle's AMC 5 this weekend for a screening (still Washington, DC's gayest theater after three decades; Brokeback Mountain took
up all five screens when it opened!). If I was a bit skeptical when I came in, between the time the trailers ended and the first three minutes of the movie I was completely taken in. The plot for Appreciation is very simple - relationships, careers, success, y'know, all of that. It reads like an episode of My So-Called Life - The College Years. A young musician named Alan (a tight-jeaned, floppy haired hipster who looks like he is going to audition for a biopic of the Strokes) plops down in New York City looking to build a music career. As we go along Alan has an accidental relationship with a cute Asian college radio DJ, but decides it just isn't going to work. And then we find out that he and his gracious househost's longterm girlfriend have an inexplicable crush on one another, and what they are going to do about it is the very lean meat upon which the remainder of the film feeds.
However, Director Andrew Bujalski doesn't exploit his story's potential for absurd high-pitched emotionally charged action; nor does it strive for the voyeuristic intensity that its shaky handheld cameras could draw out. This series of potentially sad, hilarious, painful, awkward, and angry moments are instead set up and worked out within the context of a very real group of friends. The dialogue is filled with the awkward likes and umms of people who are genuinely struggling with when and how to articulate their thoughts (though some of this can be explained by their constant inebriation). It is very rare to see a film that has such a love affair with its own characters that it will just let them live in the real-world, rather than a fictional world where every single action has to exemplify some sort of character-core deep conviction or fatalistic flaw. And it takes guts to let those characters loose on a world where audiences expect to have the storyteller pull them by a leash, rather than bring a piece of themselves into it. I don't know if any other filmmaker could pull it off, or whether even Bujalski should want to attempt it in every film. But in this case, it really works.Though its ambitious five-print self-distribution means Appreciation will most likely not reach your eyes, it will be on Amazon and Netflix early next year so check it out. Beware of who you watch it with though, because it can result in narcolepsy for the those who prefer more action in their black-and-white films. They might prefer this.
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