My friends Yona and Christina recently attended the Bend Film Festival, where they met this guy named Mark Duplass, who makes movies with his brother. The Duplass Brothers have done a couple really funny shorts and one movie. The movie is called The Puffy Chair, and last night Yona screened it for us on Javan’s big ass projector screen.
The movie follows Josh, played by Mark himself as your uncomfortably familiar 20s indie-rock guy who’s band just broke up, who’s now calling himself a “booking agent” whilst scoring the occasional gig for friends’ bands. I won’t go too big into the plot (these reviews do) but it’s basically Josh, his girlfriend Emily, and his brother Rhett on a sort of misguided road trip mission involving the titular chair (i love the word “titular”), some really funny “Curb Your Enthusiasm” situations, and major, major relationship trauma.
This movie has some seriously amazing acting in it, is really funny, smart, and deep. And it totally nails some things about my age group that I’ve never really seen on screen. For one thing, I’ve never seen a booking agent portrayed in the movies, let alone convincingly, with the anxious mix of “yeah, i’m living the dream / oh shit, what the fuck am i doing” it has here. And the characters speak and relate like people I know. “Dude” is used like dudes actually use it – as in A LOT, with Eskimo-for-snow levels of gradation and meaning. Josh calls his freaking girlfriend dude, which is really annoying and totally something I’ve done. Josh’s brother, Rhett, captures perfectly the kind of post-raver, post-hippie, psuedo-stoner, vaguely New Age mentality that we all know so well. When things get touchy feely he’s the one saying “do you guys feel this?”, swirling his hands towards invisible vibes, eyes open wide. He’s the spiritual party bro, taking videos of lizards and vibing hard. I know that guy. I am that guy (and other guys).
So yes, those are some pretty superficial reasons to get into a movie, and there’s way more to it than that. Definitely see this movie if you can. Maybe it’s on Netflix, I don’t know.
Yes, The Puffy Chair = Rad Movie.
