Following in the footsteps of Alex Ross Perry’s comedies and 2014 SXSW winner Fort Tilden (whose co-lead Clare McNulty shows up here in a small role), Robert Putka’s MAD deals almost exclusively with watching selfish, heinous people behave in selfish, heinous ways, with Putka setting his sights on a dysfunctional family and their bipolar mother. Mel (Maryann Plunkett) suffers a breakdown after her husband leaves her, winding up in the hospital when she’s found uncontrollably sobbing by her neighbours. Mel’s daughters Connie (Jennifer Lafleur), a successful corporate worker with a husband and two kids, and Casey (Eilis Cahill), unemployed and trying to figure out her life, convince her to commit herself to a psych ward in order to rehabilitate herself, a choice fueled more by selfishness than a sincere desire to help their mom.

Of course, being a family with its fair share of relationship issues, every interaction ends up devolving into a brutal war of words between mother and daughter(s). Putka, who also wrote the screenplay, knows how to write some great passive-aggressive barbs (when a dejected Mel tells Connie that her daughters hate her, Connie calmly responds with “Casey doesn’t hate you”), and his game cast do a great job making their arguments crackle until the acid-tongued screenplay gets the better of everyone. For the most part, Putka’s tonal balance between sweet and bitter works (largely because of Plunkett’s performance), but the constant repetition of Connie or other characters lashing out at one another takes its toll, eventually making scenes feel like Putka trying to constantly one-up his own insults. That makes MAD work against itself when it tries to humanize its three leads, resulting in a rocky ending when the film goes for an emotionally satisfying payoff. Fans of extremely caustic humour should get their fill with MAD, and while Putka’s attempt to find a middle ground between the sincere and cynical doesn’t entirely work (a hard task for anyone to accomplish, let alone a first feature), he shows enough wit to make MAD’s ambitions worthwhile.

In her previous film, A Teacher, writer-director Hannah Fidell examined the unconventional affair between a high-school teacher and her student. The filmmaker continues her focus on forbidden relationships in 6 Years when a long-term romance gets tested by betrayal and a new job opportunity. With an improvised script, small-name actors, and a naturalistic relationship, it’s no surprise that indie gods Mark and Jay Duplass were executive producers on the film.

It’s challenging to demonstrate years worth of chemistry, inside banter, and the subtle cadence between two people accurately on film; Fidell doesn’t seem to have that problem here. The two leads, Dan (Ben Rosenfield) and Mel (Taissa Farmiga), portray convincing soulmates who’ve grown up together since childhood and have been dating for six years. They have the kind of relationship that can sense something is wrong from just a tiny inflection in each others voice. And they can easily tell when the other has had too much to drink, regardless of how much the other tries to deny it.

As young college students tend to do, the couple takes full advantage of their freedom and lack of responsibility by spending most of their time drinking and partying with friends. One night a boozed up Mel visits Dan and tries to get frisky with him. But the mood is killed when an argument breaks out after Dan discovers she drove in this condition. A vocal argument turns physical and puts Dan in the hospital with some minor injuries (a gender role reversal in domestic disputes that’s rarely shown in films).

Dan isn’t portrayed as a saint either. Like many troubled relationships, both parties are guilty of making mistakes of their own. Over some beers one night, Dan leans over and kisses his female co-worker (Lindsay Burdge, in a somewhat reprised role from A Teacher). He realizes his mistake right away and stops before anything else happens. But the damage unfolds a few scenes later when Mel borrows his phone and finds a text message that exposes his incident.

There are a few scenes in 6 Years that feel a bit cliche. In two different parts in the film, the couple inadvertently walk in on each other in various sexual situations; Dan needs to borrow Mel’s laptop and finds she was watching porn (another refreshing gender role reversal) and Mel conveniently catches Dan sleeping with someone else. But these few melodramatic spots in the script are overshadowed by stunning performances from Rosenfield and Farmiga. Rosenfield channels his inner Mark Duplass, capturing his introverted and down-to-earth mannerisms, while Farmiga brings a lot of energy and passion to a less desirable role as the “manipulative one.”

6 Years captures what a long-term relationship feels like when it nears the breaking point. First love is a powerful beast, but its fate is often doomed from failing to accept that sometimes ending a relationship is better than trying to stick it out. Fidell illustrates this powerful realization in the final emotional scene of uncertainty. It’s heartbreaking. 6 Years distances itself from other flawed relationship narratives with its excellent acting and fresh take on gender roles.

The Duplass brothers have made quite an impact on indie cinema over the last seven years. As their budgets have increased, so have their fans. Their recent explosion in popularity with studios hindered them from taking this 4 year old project off the shelf. While they were in post-production for The Do-Deca-Pentathlon they got green-lit to make Cyrus. Then the same thing happened for Jeff, Who Lives At Home. Since these were studio opportunities The Do-Deca-Pentathlon took a back seat to these projects.

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon worked well with the things that the Duplass brothers normally get right, such as dialog and making it feel true to life alongside quirky characters that have heart. It had a more raw feeling to it which was more evident in their earlier work. Being that I am an extremely competitive person and have experienced brother rivalry firsthand, I could really relate to the film even though it shows you just how childish it can be.

Sitting in a bath tub, Mark (Steve Zissis) recalls an awful (but hilarious) prank that his older brother Jeremy (Mark Kelly) pulled on him as kids. Even though the two have not kept in touch for many years, he worries that his brother will show up at their mother’s house for his birthday party. Mark is clearly wounded from growing up with his brother, he has doctor visits to prove it. His wife Stephanie (Jennifer Lafleur) tells him not to fret as Jeremy is at a professional poker tournament.

Mark, now relieved, participates in a casual 5K fun-run with his family. But just shortly after the race begins a vehicle comes screeching towards the starting line. Sure enough, it is Jeremy. He sprints to catch up to Mark and his family and subsequently ruining Mark’s weekend. What started out as a casual run now turned into a sibling rivalry and you soon realize that Jeremy would have never passed up an opportunity to compete against is brother.

Come to find out, the two have had a long epic history of competing against one another that dates back to when they were just teenagers. As kids they came up with a pentathlon of 25 events in which the winner became the ultimate champion and the better brother. But there was no clear winner because on the final event of seeing who could hold your breath the longest underwater was interrupted by their grandfather.

So Mark’s birthday weekend now turns into a redux of the Do-Deca-Pentathlon in hopes to bring closure to which brother is really the best. The only problem is that Stephanie does not want him competing in this fierce competition because his doctors told him he needs to take it easy. Mark knows this so he and Jeremy need to form a rare alliance to hold the 25 events without this wife knowing. It was probably one of the few times that the brothers ever worked together as a team.

What follows are 25 ridiculous yet comical events that make up the Do-Deca-Pentathlon which include; Ping-Pong, shooting pool, laser tag, basketball, skee-ball, air hockey, go karting, swimming, long jump, racquetball, tennis, holding their breath the longest, and leg wrestling. It does not take Stephanie very long to catch on their “smokescreen” they put up to disguise the fact they were doing another Do-Deca. Mark must make the decision between saving his marriage or being the best brother.

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon is probably the Duplass brother’s most comical film to date. A ton of laughs were had throughout. However, it did begin the scratch the surface on some deeper relationship qualms. Such as, a son who feels like he cannot talk to his father. And also a wife who feels like she is holding her husband back from doing things he wants to do. I loved the fact that these were brought up but would have liked to have had a little more emphasis put on them. His wife seemingly gives him an ultimatum but in the next scene she forgoes her effort.

I will be honest, for a Duplass brothers film, I was not necessarily as excited to see this film as much as I was with their previous work. Also, I felt like it was not a strong start for the film so I began to wonder if this will be the first Duplass brother film I did not care for. But thankfully, in true Duplass brother fashion, they came through taking ordinary situations and make them entertaining while using their trademark quick zoom camera work.

There were times where I saw a lot of Mark Duplass in Steve Zissis’ character. Which would make sense that the film may be a little autobiographical being that Zissis’ character is named Mark. Also aligning with that theory is the fact that Zissis is the younger brother, just like Mark is to Jay in real life. But they have gone on the record to say that this was based on people they knew growing up in New Orleans.

It is human nature to be competitive but if you grew up with a brother you understand the instinctual importance of sibling rivalry even greater. The Do-Deca-Pentathlon shows that competition can do more harm than good when it turns into an obsession. In this film, both of the characters envied each other’s life while ironically disliking their own. The runtime of 76 minutes may have been a little too concise and even though you can pretty much predict the outcome, it still remained entertaining.