It’s hard to say how much can be blamed on the timing of the release of The Do-Deca-Pentathlon and how much on the movie’s self-amused mediocrity, but the latest from brothers Mark and Jay Duplass (who co-wrote and directed) seems to expose the limits of a certain kind of realism by stretching them one man-child too far.
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In the opening scene of Lynn Shelton’s fourth feature we join a conversation in progress. Or a few conversations: Voices overlap, rise and fall, fade in and out; it’s a party, small enough to sustain a few low-volume simultaneous conversations, large enough to fill the room with chatter. As in Shelton’s previous films, My Effortless Brilliance and Humpday, in Your Sister’s Sister we join the central characters at a moment of convergence, after a period of separation or crisis and before it becomes clear things can’t go on as they were before.
Aubrey Plaza might just be the anti-manic pixie dream girl, the gloriously glowering inverse of that giddy, whimsical creation who lives only in the movies, where she waits her whole life for a morose protagonist to charm and rescue. Plaza, with her indie rock Wednesday Addams vibe and remorseless deadpan, never seems like she's there to coax someone else into enjoying life. She's got her own things to worry about, and anyway, why does she need to do you that favor?
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Also in this afternoon's edition of Biz Break: Woody Allen's next adds another actor to its growing ensemble, Kathryn Bigelow picks up another cast member of her own for Zero Dark Thirty, and more...
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This is... interesting: Warner Bros. and Todd Phillips have brought in writer/directors Mark and Jay Duplass to have a crack at adapting Mule, Tony D'Souza's novel about a couple who turn to drug trafficking to make it in the recession. Phillips would direct, making the project the first time the Duplasses, who recently drew mixed reviews with Jeff, Who Lives at Home, did not direct one of their scripts. Unless Phillips goes off and spends the next two years on The Hangover Part III, in which case I guess it might be the brothers' first time directing an adaptation. Wait and see, etc. [Deadline]
Susan Sarandon is a woman at her wit’s end in Jay and Mark Duplass’ comedy Jeff, Who Lives at Home; stuck in mind-numbing office job and still dealing with the problems of her two grown but immature sons – Jeff (Jason Segal), an unemployed pothead, and Pat (Ed Helms), a douchey sales rep – her Sharon spends her days daydreaming about the life she once wanted for herself. As Sarandon confessed in a chat with Movieline, there was plenty in Jeff she related to as a single working mother in an often unforgiving industry – but, as she’s discovered, there’s always “a new dawn, a new day.”
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You have to admire the chutzpah, if not necessarily the filmmaking skills, of Jay and Mark Duplass, the duo behind the stay-at-home-son comedy-drama Jeff, Who Lives at Home. With their 2005 debut, The Puffy Chair, the Duplass brothers took an uninteresting story fleshed out with lackadaisical dialogue and, using barely rudimentary camera skills, fashioned a noodly tale about love, life and relationships. It’s easier, maybe, to admire the Duplasses' boldness more than the actual product, but you have to say this much for them: They sure do keep moving.
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For Mark and Jay Duplass, the sibling team behind The Puffy Chair, Baghead, and last year's Cyrus, success came only after years of frustration -- and only by happy accident. "All we were doing in the late '90s, in our twenties, was trying to be the Coen brothers," Jay Duplass laughed to Movieline, "and failing at that, because the Coen brothers are awesome and they're already the Coen brothers." It was only when the brothers Duplass stopped trying so hard, at the end of their creative rope and after years of fruitless attempts, that they found the formula for personal filmmaking that would become their signature.
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