Jay Duplass, along with his brother Mark, was among the founding fathers of the “mumblecore” film movement of the aughts, making low-fi indie movies like The Puffy Chair, Baghead, and Jeff, Who Lives at Home. These films were marked by screenplays that varied in terms of quality, as well as the sort of digital-video photography that it would be charitable to describe as “butt ugly.”
Like a lot of other brother filmmaking duos (the Coens, the Safdies, the Farrellys), the Duplass’ have stopped making movies together, and while they’ve worked on TV projects and done lots of acting of late, the brothers’ last feature directorial credit was in 2012. The Baltimorons is Jay Duplass’ solo directorial debut, and it’s not like the brothers’ old work from the mumblecore era.
It looks good, and its biggest thematic inspirations seem to be Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and Richard Linklater’s Before movies, although there’s some street-level cinematography that recalls Woody Allen. And its combination of a Christmastime setting and sad-sack characters will remind many of the recent The Holdovers.
It’s got a sweet heart, while going to dark places. And I’ve never seen a film use smartphone tracking apps as a plot point as skillfully as this one does. The film is set in Baltimore and was shot on location there. It presents a version of the city that’s different from the styles of Barry Levinson, John Waters, or David Simon, although, unlike those three, Duplass is from New Orleans and has no Baltimore roots. Baltimore natives will appreciate shots of the since-collapsed Key Bridge, as well as a character lying about working for the Ravens and having a ticket connection.
The film’s protagonist is Cliff (Michael Strassner, also the co-writer), and while he’s a stocky guy from Baltimore whose background is in comedy, he’s not doing an impression of Stavros Halkias. Cliff is a recovering alcoholic and a recovering improv comic, who’s introduced making a failed suicide attempt. When we next see him, he’s headed to Christmas dinner with the family of his fiancée, Britanny (Olivia Luccardi). After a series of mishaps, he requires an emergency dentist, which leads him to Didi (Liz Larsen), a similarly lonely woman several years his senior.
After a series of automotive and other mishaps, they’re at the home of her family—meaning, her ex-husband, who remarried that very morning. The two end up spending the better part of a night walking around Baltimore together and forming an unexpected bond. And that includes a visit to an improv club that ends up as the film’s centerpiece.
The Baltimorons is an annoying title, but the film finds a way to explain it, in the context of the comedy bit. It also mostly gets the comedy right, except that characters keep saying “sketch” when they mean “improv.” Strassner and Larsen are non-traditional movie people with non-traditional movie faces, but they’re outstanding here as reasonable facsimiles of a regular guy and gal. On the strength of their performances and the great love the film has for its city, I was won over.