Continuing a series of writers highlighting underseen films available to stream, a recommendation for a warm and humane comedy about an unusual love triangleWhen critics talk about the “mumblecore” movement – a catch-all term for the intimate, unadorned and semi-improvisational films that flourished with the rise of the digital camera – they at least have the courtesy to credit Andrew Bujalski as its progenitor with Funny Ha Ha in 2002.
Yet in that film and the two deft relationship comedies that followed, Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax, Bujalski was genuinely attempting something new, reproducing the common conversational hiccups that get buffed out of screenplay.
The “ums” and sentence fragments and awkward little stops-and-starts not only fed into a distinct naturalism, but underlined the uncertainty at the core of his characters’ lives.
He’s a poet of postgrad drift.Related: My streaming gem: why you should watch The Kindergarten Teacher
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