THE BALTIMORONS
(Check out Chris Reed’s’s The Baltimorons movie review, it opened September 5 and is in the midst of a nation wide roll-out. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
After over a decade away from the feature-film director’s chair, Jay Duplass (Jeff, Who Lives at Home) returns with the kind of scruffy dramedy on which he and his brother, Mark, once cut their cinematic teeth in the early 2000s. Co-written and starring Michael Strassner, The Baltimorons is, you guessed it, set in Baltimore, which happens to be both Strassner’s and my hometown. Made with generous compassion towards the many foibles of the human animal, the movie ambles along from start to finish with joy, pain, and some frequent emotional discomfort. If cringe is not your thing, armor yourself.
Strassner plays Cliff Cashen, a thirtyish bear of a man who is just six months sober. In a prologue, we see him try to hang himself, failing when the belt he uses breaks. When next we catch up, it’s Christmas Eve, and he and fiancée Brittany (Olivia Luccardi, Soft & Quiet) are heading to her mom’s place for a family feast. Along the way, Brittany expresses her pride in Cliff (for his six-months’ AA chip) and concern that he not attend an improv-comedy show that evening. Somehow, both his sobriety (or lack thereof) and improv are related. We will learn why later.
Unfortunately, on his way into the house, Cliff trips on a loose brick and cracks a tooth. Given the holiday, it’s impossible to find an open dentist’s office. Except for one. And so off Cliff goes to that office where the dentist, Didi (Liz Larsen, The Boy Downstairs), lets him in. Needles make him nervous, so she gives him nitrous oxide (aka “laughing gas”). Despite the awkwardness of the situation, which includes his mouth being forced open with a retractor, Cliff finds himself flirting with the older Didi. He also overhears a phone conversation she has with her daughter about how her ex-husband has just gotten married that day.
None of this would matter if Cliff just left to head back to the holiday meal at Brittany’s mom’s place. But his car has been towed, and Didi, despite finding Cliff annoying, offers him a ride to the tow lot. This is the start of a series of misadventures that completely changes both of their lives, recalling Martin Scorsese’s 1985 After Hours in the wildness of the ride. And yes, improv plays a role.
What emerges is an affecting journey through both Charm City and Cliff and Didi‘s insecurities. The more we learn about Didi, the more we feel for her own situation, while Cliff evolves from something of a schlub to a sympathetic and complex main character. They each become fully three-dimensional beings whose relationship makes very little initial sense yet develops in ways organic to the plot.
One of the great virtues of The Baltimorons—though not all the quirky humor lands evenly—is that it is highly unpredictable. Like the improbable onscreen geography of the town (which sometimes makes no sense if you live here and know what is located where), the story careens from event to consequence in whimsical fashion. It mostly works, though the leisurely pace sometimes undermines intended laughs. By the end, we are fully invested, however. The trip is well worth the detour.
Click here to read Jack Schenker’s interview with Duplass, Strassner and Larsen
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
IFC Films; Jay Duplass; The Tale of Silyan movie review
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