Been a longtime watcher/reader of Stuckmann's work. His love of cinema & storytelling is prevalent throughout this short. It's generally agreed that telling a complete and competent story in fewer pages is immensely challenging. While this film does stumble over its own jokes in the beginning, I think Stuckmann managed to capture a lot of heart in this dual-layered narrative.
On the surface we've got a writer attempting to write his next big movie while consulting a friend/colleague for workshopping notes. Underneath that surface is a piecemeal revelation of a man who recognizes that he's partially sold his soul to earn money by cranking out horrendous scripts, mourning the fulfillment he's given up while at the same time striving to make his way back to it. Throughout the process of the feedback he receives from Melanie, we learn more about his fears and wounds -- not only in terms of how he feels he's betrayed his own values, but in terms of a more existential dread that no one will remember him -- at least not for anything good.
That more existential dread of living, existing, and dying without leaving a poignant mark, I think, calls into question a conflict/fear that many people have -- especially people who find fulfillment in creating: wanting to be remembered, but fearing that they won't. A desire to create paired with a fear that what's created will be no good, and that the "no good"-ness of it will be what they're remembered for. As a relatively new filmmaker (at least from a filmography standpoint -- we all know Stuckmann's been Stuckmannizing since childhood), I thought this poignant theme was a hell of a bold emotion to showcase as a thesis of this film. Executing it with notes of comedy, drama, tension, and romance was ambitious and entertaining, although I'm not sure all of those notes landed.
This film is dripping with Stuckmann's voice and style. The interspersed absurd comedy that's also steeped in movie references, while fun, does at times detract from the more poignant themes of legacy and existential dread. The cutaways to various other films-within-the-film are downright hilarious (I love that Flickinger is in all of them), but I do think there were one or two too many.
I liked the chemistry between the two leads. I thought they worked well together, and I felt that the script demonstrated enough of their history while not leaning on or stumbling over it. For such a contained "bottle" of a story, it makes sense that much of the growth and revelations emerge through dialogue, however I felt that some of the dialogue was a bit spoonfeedy. What I would have liked more of would have been more moments of vulnerability from the characters, especially Joe. He embodies this hyped up screenwriter-type who's just so excited about pumping out a script and finding that next big thing, but it was when he was showing his own "laments" (paralleling the summary of the script he's writing oh so nicely) that I really felt invited into his mind and heart.
The earlier half of the film is infused with his zany energy that, while still part of him, prevented me from getting to know Joe more deeply. It was when Joe spoke about his past hurts (both professionally and personally) that I felt much more interested and invested in him. And I like that ongoing tensions within this now-broken relationship served as a bit of a catalyst for those vulnerabilities to emerge. What wasn't so clear in the film was why their relationship ended in the first place, and it would have been nice if this were explored in parallel with why Joe decided to go "path of least resistance" with his lowbrow scripts, and why Melanie ultimately distanced herself from him. I thought that particular theme (Joe's tendency to go for what's easy / skirt around the tough stuff) could have been explored more meaningfully.
A real strength of this movie is its use of momentum on all sensory fronts: music, dialogue, shooting. When excitement is injected into the story, or when lament swells up, the music matches...as does the camera work. All of these elements really coalesced to a solid package and appeared to work in sync with one another.
I want to talk about the "meta" components of this film. There's a risk in any story-within-a-story narrative that things can come across as too spoonfeedy or obvious. Overall, I felt the parallels worked without the film hitting us too over the head with them. Joe writing and explaining a script called the "Puppet's Lament" which serves as a reference to his own plight, which could arguably be applied to Stuckmann himself, is explored without being the punchline that anchors the entire story.
There's an exchange near the very end of the film between the two leads in which, while discussing the ending of Joe's revised script, a parallel is made between the "ending" of not only Joe & Melanie's arc, but of the short film we're watching as well. For a movie that is partially about writing, this was a risky thing to portray through dialogue. That being said, it worked for me. I thought it was executed with a lot of heart and sweetness, to the point where it left me smiling. I thought the note to end the film, i.e., the question that it leaves the viewer -- and Joe -- with, landed really well for me. It takes a lot for this to be conducted in such a way so as to not become cheesy, and I think Stuckmann -- oh dear lord -- stuck the landing of this ending really well. I don't think I've seen camera angles that tight on characters faces, but I thought it really captured the intimacy and closeness of that moment really well. Not sure if it was intentional (my guess = yes), but: the camera angles and distance of the shots were a lot father at the start of the film. As the story presses on and the characters reconnect, the angles get closer, exemplifying not only their reemerging connection, but the tension and closeness with which we experience these characters as well. Nice work!
Aside from some over-reliance on silly humor, some spoonfeedy dialogue, and some missed opportunities for depth, I thought this was a fun film with lots of ambition with something to say. Competently helmed and written, and executed in such a way that the parallel themes and dual narratives didn't stumble over themselves. Keep it up, Stuckmann.
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