I Cover the Waterfront (Film Festival): Part 2
All that aside, TUG had a couple of strikes against it in my book. I don’t like movies about young people who use the fact that they’re trying to figure their lives out as an excuse for treating people poorly. Also, Sam Huntington plays a lead character who’s never given a name. Outside of the “Man with No Name” trilogy, Fight Club, and Jacob’s brother on Lost, that’s usually not a great gimmick. Still, TUG is aggressively winning and likeable.
The main character is a guy who wants to be a screenwriter and has a great girlfriend, but his ex keeps harassing him and jeopardizing the relationship, while his self-doubt and inability to get any work done puts his career in danger. His roommate runs a barbershop out of their garage, the ceiling keeps collapsing, and there’s a bedwetting incident. It runs perilously close to quirk overload but never quite gets there – first-time writer/director Abram Makowka keeps it all on the rails admirably.
In the end, there’s no real insight in TUG – at least nothing you can’t guess from the first few minutes. But it’s fast-moving and funny and the cast is excellent. It’s solid, middle-of-the-road entertainment, and there’s nothing wrong with that if you do it well. TUG does it very well. And it points to a bright future for Depree’s TicTock productions.
Norman – This might have been my favorite movie of the Festival, though it’s really too close to call. Cougar Town’s Dan Byrd stars as the titular Norman, a high school student who lost his mother in a car accident and whose father (Richard Jenkins) is dying of stomach cancer. Norman’s kind of a dark kid, and understandably so. Both the script and Byrd do a fine job of keeping Norman somewhere between being a self-absorbed adolescent and a genuinely decent kid who’s having a hard time holding up.
Despite being overly dramatic and self-damaging, Norman meets a nice girl named Emily who really seems to like him. And just when there’s something actually good in his life, Norman gets in an argument with his best friend and claims his father’s terminal diagnosis as his own, and before long, it’s all over school that Norman has three months to live.
Norman plays into it, copying his father’s symptoms and inspiring sympathy and guilt from his classmates, many of whom used to torment him. And of course, it’s absolute hell on Emily, who liked him before he was fake-sick. Norman’s simultaneous guilt and enjoyment play out really well, and his scenes with Jenkins are consistently excellent. (Sidenote: I was disappointed that Richard Jenkins didn’t attend the Festival, since I really wanted to ask him questions about Step Brothers, and in particular, the Catalina Wine Mixer.)
I don’t want to say too much, since it would be a shame to tip off any of the emotional beats. It’s quite fantastic, though. I had a really strong emotional reaction to Norman, and in one scene toward the end, I very nearly fell apart. Everything works in Norman, and I highly recommend it.
His & Hers – This is an odd movie, but it’s absolutely delightful. Director Ken Wardrop spoke to 
dozens of Irish women about the men in their lives – fathers, boyfriends, sons, husbands. It’s shot very simply, and it doesn’t strive for any great insight. But it’s sweet and funny and immensely likeable.
dozens of Irish women about the men in their lives – fathers, boyfriends, sons, husbands. It’s shot very simply, and it doesn’t strive for any great insight. But it’s sweet and funny and immensely likeable. The subjects are arranged by age, so we begin with a very young girl explaining that her father swears a lot and we end with an elderly woman remembering her husband’s death. Along the way there are plenty of laughs and more than a few heartwarming moments. And I guess the point is that these things are universal. Whatever your gender or nationality, you’ll be able to find something relatable in what these women are saying.
It’s hard to write much about His & Hers because it’s so simple. It’s just people talking, but what they have to say is funny and real, and it’s definitely worth your time.
Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up the Festival with a look at The Extra Man, Tanner Hall, and Cherry. Warning: I will be talking about my almost unseemly love of John C. Reilly.
