SXSW Film Reviews

MUTUAL APPRECIATION

D: Andrew Bujalski; with Bujalski, Justin Rice, Rachel Clift, Seung-Min Lee

Narrative Feature Competition

The appreciation is indeed mutual. This low-fi character comedy, shot with grainy black-and-white in dingy little spaces – basements and TAs' offices and crashed-in apartments – is right at home in the land of Linklater. Bujalski's warmly naturalistic second feature follows Alan (Rice, lovably scruffy and vaguely Jason Schwartzman-esque) to New York City, where he attempts to gig (as the Bumblebees, though there's really only one of him), falls in with a scene queen (Lee), and hangs out. There's kind of a plot, but we mostly see the moments that comprise everyday life: the awkward pauses, the stilted conversations that might or might not lead somewhere, the hour after the party, when three or four people in wigs polish off the beer. The movie ambles along genially, and it feels delightfully real.

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Paramount, 4pm