We’ve got yet another giant-sized show for this week on the Way Too Indiecast! Joining your regular host, Bernard, on today’s podcast are three familiar faces, plus one very special, very indie guest. Indie filmmaker Kevin Chenault joins the show in our first segment to talk about his latest movie, Different Drum, as well as share his favorite road trip movies along with Bernard and Way Too Indie head honcho, Dustin Jansick. After the break, we say goodbye to the boys from the midwest and welcome in Ananda and Zach to talk about the highlights and lowlights from the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, which just wrapped up. Plus, as always, our indie picks of the week!

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (2:30)
• Different Drum (10:40)
• Favorite Road Trip Movies (14:30)
• Tribeca Wrap-Up (33:18)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Of Horses and Men review

Different Drum review

Along the Roadside review

2015 Tribeca coverage

TransFatty Lives review

(T)ERROR review

Among the Believers review

The Wolfpack review

The Overnight review

Grandma review

Slow West review

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Star Wars had the Millennium Falcon, Batman had the Batmobile, and The NeverEnding Story had Falcor. Cheeky road trip dramedy Let’s Ruin it With Babies has the RVIP Lounge, a hulking, tricked-out RV equipped to host wild, mobile karaoke parties that everyone’s invited to (at no cost). Its owners describe the roving fun-machine as “equal parts transportation and entertainment. Transportainment.”

Said owners are Channing (Kestrin Pantera) and Chaz (Jonathan Grubb), a hip L.A. couple who, after reaching their goal on Kickstarter, are getting ready to unleash the RVIP on the party-hungry masses with a cross-country trip. They’re living a kick-ass 21st century lifestyle: they host trendy parties in their beautiful home, they have awesome friends, and they’ve even landed an interview with NPR. But when Chaz announces to their awesome friends at one of their trendy parties that the couple are planning to bring a little one into the world, the typically chirpy Channing is seized with apprehension. Why ruin it with babies?

Pantera wrote and directed Let’s Ruin it With Babies and based it closely on real experiences (the RVIP exists!), though the narrative and characters are fictional. Pantera’s bubbly personality shines throughout, and though a handful of overly familiar plot devices occasionally sterilize its uniqueness, the film ultimately feels honest and authentic.

When Chaz lands a lucrative big-boy job in the city, he’s forced to bail on the trip, and Channing does her damnedest to hide her disappointment, giving “Chazzy” a half-hearted congratulatory smooch. Even though it’s a scene we’ve seen a million times, Pantera’s dialog flows and evolves organically, and the acting is pitch-perfect, which makes them worthwhile. The interplay between Pantera and real-life husband Grubb is fantastic, and it would have been nice to see more of it. With Chaz staying home, Channing employs a few friends to join her, including her don’t-care cool chick Bunnie (Eva Kim, hilarious), and Max (Sam Friedman, the film’s DP).

The tour starts off great, with the crew plucking randoms off of the street and showing them the time of their lives, singing punchy unknown indie tunes and “America the Beautiful”. (Licensing likely limited Pantera’s soundtrack choices, but the absence of karaoke classics is cleverly worked around and doesn’t detract from the experience.) As the RVIP rolls on, wave after wave of sticky situations begin to pile up and weigh heavy on Channing, including a torn-up fan belt, a run-in with a wacko mechanic, a sabotaged interview, and a hurtful phone argument with Chaz. (There’s also a romantic subplot involving Max, but aside from some beautiful shots of the two doing yoga in front of a wheat field, it feels nonessential.) Caving under the pressure, Channing is forced to dig deep, assess her priorities and decide whether starting a family with Chaz is the best life choice for her.

Plot-wise, every beat Let’s Ruin it With Babies hits has been done to death in countless post-Apatow dramedies, but it’s in the execution of these scenes–the cinematography, the acting, the editing–where the film sets itself apart. 30-somethings who’ve felt hesitancy while standing on the precipice of starting a family will likely relate to the film on a deeper level, but Pantera’s such an endearing, magnetic heroine that her journey should appeal to anyone. Let’s Ruin it With Babies is a charming, über-cute road flick with real drama and savvy, hard-hitting humor. A worthy watch.

In Kevin Chenault’s Different Drum (named after the Stone Poneys song), we follow two young ex-lovers as they take a road trip from South Dakota to Indiana, exploring and sampling the local flavor of 9 Midwest cities, all while learning to leave the past behind and accept each other in a new way. It’s a cute, humble, intimate portrait of small-town America whose main characters are so relatable we want to give them a big hug.

Tod (Zach Zint) is an unemployed, peniless musician (he’s banking on selling some of his old comic books for dough) from South Dakota who’s forced to drive to a wedding three states away with his pregnant ex-girlfriend Lydia (Isabella DeVoy). Though they haven’t spoken for a while, there’s still a strong chemistry between them, sharing the same deadpan humor, taste in music (Tears For Fears sing-along!), and taste in drinks (Sarsaparilla, PBR). It’s revealed gradually that there’s still a good amount of unresolved tension between them, as the split may not have been as amicable as we first thought (“You broke up with me, asshole!”). As they push through the the quirky landmarks, bars, eateries, motels, and bargain bin shops of the 9 cities on their road map, running into small-town eccentrics along the way, the shared sense of discovery helps them to reestablish the bond between them while accepting the new role they play in each others’ lives.

The story is divided into chapters, each represented by a city on Tod and Lydia’s Midwest tour. Chenault, is patient and deliberate in his storytelling, never over-embellishing scenes with needlessly wordy dialog that plagues other small-budget indies of the same ilk. This is a simple story about everyday people, and Chenault’s got enough taste and restraint to know that that’s interesting enough. The drama isn’t loud or hard-hitting, but it’s utterly human, relatable, and of our time.

Though both first-timers, Zint and DeVoy turn out effortless performances that feel delightfully naturalistic. It’s fun to hang out with them. They walk and talk like real people, and they don’t deliver lines like big-time Hollywood actors because the grounded story doesn’t call for that kind of performance. It would have been nice to have seen some genuine laughter from them, though, as their often expressionless, apathetic delivery can occasionally sap the energy out of a moment.

Some of the supporting players are written for laughs and more broadly, resulting in some tonal unevenness when they interact with our protagonists. However, there are also wonderful scenes involving real-life locals, including one set in Sioux City, Iowa, in which a 90-year-old man tells Zint and DeVoy that the diner they’re sitting in used to be called “Pete’s Pickle Palace” in 1951, when he moved to the city. “All they sold was hamburgers and french fries!” Raw, spontaneous moments like these are Different Drum‘s best.

There are some genuine laughs throughout the film, including a tree branch accident that results in an eye patch for Lydia, and a urinal mishap that results in soiled shoes for Tod. The film opens with a hilarious scene in which Tod swipes clothes from a thrift shop, evoking the likable pitifulness of many a Woody Allen and Coen Brothers protagonist.

Chenault, a native of Evansville, Indiana, has a deliberate visual style and is clearly enamored with the quaintness and unexplored corners of the towns his characters visit. Despite the film’s short running time of just under 80 minutes, he takes time to show carefully composed still shots of forgotten buildings, old roadways, and public parks, capturing that sense of quiet comfort everyone who comes from a small town is familiar with. The soundtrack, featuring several indie artists, fits the film like a glove and only kicks in when needed.

Different Drum doesn’t make any sweeping statements about love or deliver any bombastic moments of high drama, because it’s more true-to-life than that. It’s refreshing to see a young director like Chenault show such restraint so early in his career (this is his second feature), telling a story that doesn’t have to be loud to be engaging.

Different Drum trailer