BEESWAX (USA/2009/ANDREW BUJALSKI)

Jeannie is a wheelchair user who runs a colourful boutique. At the beginning of Beeswax, we see Jeannie meeting with a potential employee, presenting herself as an organised, authoritative figure as if to spite her public image as a ‘disabled’ person. Jeannie has a happy-go-lucky twin sister named Lauren who struggles with the concept of commitment and doesn’t seem to have much structure in her life. Her biggest plan in the pipeline is a mission to Kenya to teach English to children, a scheme which she sees as incompatible with her current relationship. The sisters live their lives separately, but constantly consult one another about work, money and love.

Director Andrew Bujalski is known as one of the bastions of the mumblecore movement, which generally sees as its enemy the artifice of cinema. Beeswax’s most impressive feat is its realism, and all of the actors embrace their roles to the point of living them, but that doesn’t amount to a great deal when the slice of life under the microscope is not particularly notable. It is thus hard to understand exactly what Bujalski wants to tell us about life beyond his fantasy that everyone dabbles in the same hopelessly charming idiolect, and a lot of the dialogue borders on preciousness. Bujalski’s previous feature, the vastly superior Mutual Appreciation, succeeded for the warmth and innocence of its protagonist, and this is perhaps what Beeswax lacks the most. Bujalski is a very promising filmmaker, and one hopes that Beeswax is an anomaly.

THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED (USA/2008/JOSHUA SAFDIE)

Mumblecore, a relatively new, ultra low-budget cinéma vérité movement in the States, is as maligned as it is praised. Some claim that the movement is deliberately ignorant of its predecessors and contrives the guilelessness of neorealism, while others hail it as a return to true independent cinema. This reviewer is diplomatically ambivalent – the concept is interesting, but there is a definite overreliance on the supposedly inherent charm of the characters and their interactions. But no matter what one’s angle on this loose alliance of indie filmmakers, there is a film for everyone, and after much searching, I believe I’ve found mine.

The Pleasure Of Being Robbed follows playful gamine Eléonore, looking like a jagged version of Hilary Swank, as she indiscriminately thieves her way around Manhattan. We are never informed of her motives, and for the most part her delinquency is made to seem completely inconsequential. One evening, with the help of her friend Josh, Eléonore breaks into a car and soon finds herself at the wheel on her very first drive. Having taken Josh back to his pad in Boston, Eléonore rides the car back to NYC for another day of frivolity, even with new obstacles in place.

All things considered, the film doesn’t proffer much in the way of cinematic expression, and the 68-minute running time means that it is easily forgotten. However, there seems to be no cine-agenda here (its transparent nouvelle vague pretences notwithstanding), and the film succeeds in being an entertaining sliver of uncomplicated escapism.

MUTUAL APPRECIATION (USA/2005/ANDREW BUJALSKI)

Mutual Appreciation is as much a milestone of indie filmmaking as it is a victim of its own pretences. As with many of the other mumblecore films I’ve watched, the observer paradox seems to pervade much of the dialogue, much of which feels calculatingly awkward – one can distinguish between the improvised lines and premeditated lines. It is easy to believe that the makers of these films are very similar to their characters – young, confused, directionless – but the fact that the focus most often falls on the progeny of the last bourgeois generation takes away the integrity of this gritty, frugal filming style.

Having said that, the film does convey the relationships between its characters realistically, and some scenes successfully epitomise the unpredictability of life. I was particularly struck by one scene where Alan (Justin Rice) is besieged by women at a ‘party’ he wasn’t certain about going to in the first place, and is eventually persuaded to don a dress and make-up. Here it seems the actors were given the most room to ad-lib, and Rice tackles the daunting task convincingly. It’s a brilliant piece of footage which seems to speak to the majority of young adults and their issues with projecting identity.

Overall, the film is a satisfying experience if you allow yourself to believe in it. Given Hollywood’s transparent efforts to channel the “indie” aesthetic, it’s something of a find. However, without condemning the whole mumblecore movement, I think I sympathise more with its critics than its fans.