Two siblings’ underlying resentment for one another is put to the test by a new love interest in My Blind Brother, a rom-com that often feels like it’s cutting with a blunt edge. In a clever bit of character building, the film opens with Robbie (Adam Scott) effortlessly running through the end of a marathon while his brother, an able-sighted Bill (Nick Kroll) sweats the last leg out trailing behind on Robbie’s guide rope. Here both the plot and joke remains purely on the surface; Bill’s life and accomplishments are performed in his blind brother’s shadow. Often, the unsatisfying aspect to Sophie Goodhart’s directorial debut is in its inability to mine its premise further.

The brothers become increasingly petty to one another over Robbie’s new girlfriend Francie (Jenny Slate), a woman in crisis after her ex-boyfriend gets blindsided by a bus. Slate and Kroll have worked together previously and share a dynamic chemistry on-screen as a romantic pair. Her presence elicits a warmer, more verbally unhinged side to his character—the only version of him in My Blind Brother with charisma. She also has moments of unexpected vulgarity spoken with her delightful, squeaky tone. This movie and everyone in it knows that Francie is dating the wrong brother; however, in the frustrating tradition of romantic comedies, the tension is left to linger everyone cowers away from confrontation.

Considering the level of comedic talent involved, one of the most surprising elements to My Blind Brother is its saccharine quality. Robbie is treated as an unrepentant dick throughout the movie, only to be given a tearful confession at the movie’s end. The character’s disability provides a few solid gags but is handled with a level of naturalism. Kroll, Scott and Slate are all charming presences in their roles—as is a totally magnetic and slightly underserved Zoe Kazan as Slate’s roommate—but knowing each of those actors’ penchants for hilarity, My Blind Brother feels lean on humor.

My Blind Brother is mostly amusing and its performances are strong, however, the tone remains unwavering until the film’s ending: lightly comedic, but unrelentingly self-serious. With so little actively happening in the plot the movie grows dull between stretches of more consistent humor. Sophie Goodhart’s My Blind Brother is thinly plotted and familiar, but this mostly pleasant comedy has a winning romance at its center which elevates the film beyond standard fare.

With her discomforting new psychological thriller Always Shine premiering as part of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, filmmaker Sophia Takal has already drawn comparisons to Brian De Palma, David Lynch, and even Ingmar Bergman with her new film. Yet, reviews of Always Shine that point to the film’s central pair of femme fatale-style blondes or the voyeuristic lens it applies to its actresses overlook a significant quality of Takal’s 2nd feature. “I don’t really know that there are a lot of movies about female friendships that ring true to me,” she begins during an early interview one morning in Midtown. “At least none that I’ve seen that I can think of right now.”

The tension in Always Shine is fueled by the mutual envy between its leads Anna (Mackenzie Davis) and Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) best friends who decide to rebuild their broken bond by spending a weekend together in Big Sur. More than just spending time with one another, the trip is a chance for both actresses to escape how the outside world views them, as well as the roles—both personal and professional—in which they feel trapped. As the two old friends reconnect, their underlying resentment for one another turns their vacation into an anxiety nightmare with dangerous consequences.

In her sit-down interview with Way Too Indie during Tribeca, Always Shine director Sophia Takal discusses the competitive jealousy that inspired her film, the thematic importance of having female characters portray actresses, and how Always Shine helped the filmmaker come to terms with the competing aspects of her own personality.

Always Shine was written by your husband [screenwriter Lawrence Michael Levine, who also plays Jesse in the film], were you part of the initial development of this idea?
Sophia Takal: I came up with a tiny seed of the idea of wanting to make a movie about my own struggles with fitting into a normal idea of femininity. I made a movie called Green, and right after that movie came out something got triggered in me where I felt insanely competitive with all my friends—actor friends, director friends – and I was sabotaging those relationships. I was filled with all this rage and I was so angry.

I was taught that the right way to be a woman was to be shy and deferential—to not take up too much space—but I felt so big and bossy and aggressive and I just felt so bad about myself. It was creating this very violent conflict within me, and Larry was sort of just watching me unravel, go totally crazy and alienate everyone around me. We started talking a little bit about how I was feeling. I always gravitate toward making movies about really personal things.

I started talking to other women about saying “I really don’t feel like a woman, I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job at this,” and they would say “I don’t feel that way either.” I realized that it wasn’t just specific to me, but maybe there was a little bit more of a universal struggle that we were experiencing as women. So I wrote a one-page outline of ideas for how I could make it into a movie.

Larry really connected with these feelings. He had felt [competitive] towards me, [like] I was feeling towards other people. He had similar feelings about not fitting into the typical masculine roles of being really, really rich, and really, really powerful, and not emotional, and not crying. He said, “I felt a similar alienation from the set of expectations of my gender and I think that we could do something really interesting.” He’s an incredible writer, a much better writer than I am. So I just trusted him to create a script based on our shared set of experiences.

We did think it was important to address femininity rather than [make it] about a man. He read a lot of feminist books about female archetypes. There’s this one really great book called “Down From the Pedestal” [by Maxine Harris], which was all about different female archetypes and how women fit into them. He read books about celebrity obsession, “Fame Junkies” [by Jake Halpern] and “Gods Like Us” [by Ty Burr]. A lot about feminism and celebrity.

So that increased attention to your careers was a part of the inspiration, as well?
Definitely. Larry and I both got very career-obsessed. Just striving, grasping, not being satisfied with anything we had. Really feeling that our self-worth was bound up in this idea that we needed to become famous. And I feel like we just fell prey to what our society tells us, where celebrities are the new gods. It’s hard to feel valuable in a society that tells you that the most valuable people are these tall, beautiful men and women. It’s a bummer.

I was talking with Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote Nerdland, about this desperation from the fringes of the entertainment industry. The tangible aspects of modern fame, I think, makes it seem not so out of grasp, which can drive you insane if you’re in that periphery.
Yeah. Also, because a lot of people are famous for no reason. The act of getting famous is a focus, rather than the act of creating and fame [coming] as a byproduct of that. It seems to have taken people over more and more. I talked with Mackenzie and Caitlin about that a lot. That when you become an actor you become an actor because you want to create something and enter this secret space where you’re connecting with someone. Then the weird by-product of being successful at that and getting to work is being pigeonholed into these tinier and tinier boxes.

[You] go to fashion shows and wear makeup and it’s not at all to do with why you started wanting to be an artist. A lot of business type people in the industry convince you that that’s essential in order to be an artist. Especially with actors. The less you know about an actor, the better the experience watching them work is going to be because you don’t have all the baggage. This internet age where you know everything about everyone is especially bad for everyone. Who’s someone really famous?

Ben Affleck.
Ben Affleck, yeah!

We spent a whole two years saying, “He doesn’t look like Batman.”
There’s just so much stuff, yeah. Like, “He had an affair with his baby sitter,” or whatever.

The femininity aspects in the film are really interesting, too. Particularly relating to the whole duality of these characters, balancing, “is this who I am?” with, “is this who I want to be?”
Definitely. To me, thematically, those are two sides of one woman. The process that I’ve undergone in my life is to synthesize those two aspects, rather than feeling pulled toward feeling small, getting angry that I wasn’t that way, and getting pulled in two directions. My personal journey has been to merge those two sides to become a more whole, balanced person. To not be mad at myself for not feeling one way, or reacting another way. They are two sides of the same person. And some people may naturally gravitate towards one. But both are kind of a performance.

There is that really interesting moment when you first introducing Mackenzie’s character and it’s made to look like an audition scene. Do you feel like that desire to be a certain type of person forces us to be performative in real life?

Yeah, I can only speak to my experience. But I feel like I’m performing all the time. Interacting with people is a negotiation. And I think as a woman, you’re taught how to perform to get what you need. Like, to seduce, or all these [prompts] that you could give to an actor at any time in a scene.

I think that was true, and that’s something we wanted to hone in on in the movie. And that’s why we used a lot of alienation and breaking of the fourth wall techniques, too, to remind people it’s not just actors who perform. It’s all of us who perform in our everyday lives and are choosing to present something to the world, [something] that’s been fed to us, rather than [present] who we really are.

To literalize some of that conflict by making them both actresses, was that something you debated at any point or was that there from the beginning?
It was always going to be actors in my mind. Mainly, because I started as an actor, so I really related to that. Then, a couple of producers and money people said, “Does it have to be actors? Because that’s not so accessible,” but I disagree. Birdman won an Oscar.

I always said, “No, it has to be actors.” I could never really articulate exactly why. And then this one filmmaker named Elisabeth Subrin has this really awesome blog called “Who Cares About Actresses?” And she articulates it so well, so I’m kind of just copying what she says. But it says that actresses represent to women what women are supposed to be. So when you choose how to portray a woman by picking an actress, you’re just telling women how to behave.

And then they become these archetypal figures.
Yeah, they’re just like tools to pigeonhole. I wanted to play around a lot with how actresses are used, which is why one thing I was excited about when I came onto it was obscuring the nudity. Almost showing them naked so that the audience would feel in their bodies that they wanted to see them naked and have to confront that feeling. Or obscuring the violence was another thing. I don’t know if this is the reaction people had, but it would be so cool if people were like, “Why can’t I see her kill her?!” and then get frustrated and say, “Why do I want to see her kill her?”

It’s that thing where you’re sort of seeking an answer that you already know. I found myself sitting there waiting to see a death scene but also knowing I didn’t need it. That’s a weird impulse.
Yeah, I just thought it might be interesting for people to sit with their desires rather than being given everything.

What were some of your visual influences? The quick splicing of scenes, the unsettling, disorienting style was really engaging and disorienting.
Mark Schwartzbard shot the movie and we watched Three Women like eight or nine times, and Images, the Robert Altman movie. We bought this 1960s zoom lens that was totally unused off of eBay, which was really cool. That was the only one we used for the whole movie.

Then Zach Clark edited it, and I had shown him a couple minutes of something that I had cut myself. I said, “I really want this to be weird and unsettling but I have no idea what to do.” Then he cut the opening credit sequence first and I was like, “Oh yeah, do that always, everywhere in the movie.” He kind of just brought the blinky, splicy stuff to me, and I thought it was amazing. He’s the one kind of responsible for more of the avant-garde elements. Seeing the slates – all those things – he added a whole other layer to the film. He really found visual ways to make it interesting.

A lot of what’s happening on-screen is not that unsettling or strange, but it’s the presentation of it – whether it’s the score or just that interstitching – that makes it so tense. Particularly, the scene where they’re running lines together.
Yeah, it’s so cool, they were really good!

Were you deliberately looking to make seemingly smaller moments play big?
Yes, definitely. My first movie, Green, I was also playing around with elements of genre, but it wasn’t as much of a genre movie. And this I really wanted to make it a psychological thriller, but I still wanted to root it in naturalism and [keep it] performance-driven. So all the choices we made with shooting was to make it as scary as possible

Same with music and editing. And I got really lucky with the actors because I love single-take scenes and they were so talented that we didn’t need to cut a performance. They were just able to do it on set. Not cutting away in certain tense moments built more tension, so I was really glad to be able to have that.

How did Mackenzie and Caitlin get involved? Did you seek them out?
They both came to me through agents and casting directors in the more traditional way. We cast Mackenzie first, and she just really understood Anna, understood the script. I was really excited and I was a huge fan of her work. Caitlin’s agent reached out to me, I was also a huge fan of her work. They were the two women that I spoke to that totally understood the script backwards and forwards, and had clear, specific ideas for their characters.

For me, as the director, casting is essential. Part of the way I decide to cast someone, I choose the person who I think is going to need the least amount of help. For everyone in the cast and crew, I just want everyone who can do their job so I stay out of the way. That’s a big part of what I was looking for. People who really understand this material, people who were willing to come out with me into the woods, work with a really small crew, do the weird hippy new-agey warm-ups I insist on doing and the meditation. People who feel that this is an important movie to make with important themes. Not just people who say “Oh I get to have the lead in an indie.” There was a lot of trust between the three of us that really moved me. It was really exciting and cool. It was the first time I worked with actresses that I didn’t have a relationship with before.

I was wondering if at any point you had considered casting either of them in the opposite role.
No.

It was clear from the start?
It was clear from the start. Yeah.

You’re a multi-hyphenate, actress being one of them. Was there any point where you thought you might be in this film?
At the very beginning when I gave Larry that one page I was like, “let’s just go into Big Sur and improvise a movie.” And he was like, “No, this could be better than that,” And I said, “I’m only going to give up my part if I find someone who I think can do a better job than me.” Then I did. And the role is so intense and aggressive that in order to inhabit that space I would be a terribly mean director.

The process was really important to me. Not knowing what was going to happen to a tiny independent film, I just focused on making sure that making this movie was as fulfilling as possible for everyone involved and that we learn and grow as a group and as individuals through this one month. So I thought that I could facilitate this kind of energetic whatever by being just a director. And it was so much easier than acting and directing. I acted in my first movie. Part of what’s fun about acting is losing yourself in the moment, but if you’re directing too, you can’t.

So you prefer to focus your energy in that way?
I think I do now.

Are you planning any other projects now?
Yeah, I have a script ready, but still not really big. But it’s more of a light dramedy. It will be an interesting shift to move away from these genre elements and focus more on like real life. I definitely don’t want to get pigeonholed as a genre director. Someone talked to me after the movie and said, “There are so few female genre directors, you could really make a big career out of it, do studio stuff,” and I was like, “Uh, I don’t know.”

That to me seems weird, I don’t like genre movies more than any other movies. For me, the through-line with all my ideas is that I’m talking about issues that women have that they’re maybe ashamed to acknowledge publicly. It can spark a dialogue and make them feel less alone, and I don’t think it needs to be any particular genre to do that.

One of the very interesting things about Always Shine is that it does talk about jealousy between friends in a way people tend to not acknowledge or not want to acknowledge, at least. Have you thought about why it’s so difficult to confront?
Do you have that feeling with other male friends?

I think I do. For me, it’s about relative positions in life. And certain people get, like, a nice apartment, or a nice promotion. It’s like a milestone type of thing.
Yeah, I guess I could go deep into an anti-capitalism rant right now. I think it’s the nature of capitalism to have a scarcity mentality and to feel like there’s not enough to go around for everyone. I think that’s particularly true about actresses. That’s another reason I think it’s a cool career to give these two characters. There’s one part and one person can get it.

And it’s not necessarily about talent or anything.
Yeah, I really think that’s true for everyone, I think that that’s a big problem with this society’s obsession with money and power.

It’s an unflattering obsession to have.
Yeah, and then it’s embarrassing. The reason I asked you about men was because with women there’s a huge emphasis on perfection and quietness and not challenging, and so that’s why I was wondering if that was why we don’t like to talk about it, but I don’t know. If everyone feels that way then I don’t know what it is.

Maybe it is just the sense of acknowledging that you don’t feel good enough or you haven’t accomplished enough.
Right. Because everyone’s performing, so you want to create this image of success or having it all together and not being jealous. But then it’s eating away at you inside, making you go crazy, and all of the sudden you’re screaming and crying in the post office. Just like, “Why can’t you give me my package without an ID?!” That didn’t actually happen.

It’s a metaphorical post office.
But I did really shove my boyfriend’s manager because he called me a primadonna. So [the movie’s] based on real life.

Transcription assistance from Jason Gong

As a Brit who lived for many years in Spain before coming to America during New York City Football Club’s inaugural season, documentarian Justin Webster’s background mirrors that of many of the players on Major League Soccer team rosters. Benefiting from his personal connection to the City Football Group, as well as some fortunate timing, Webster found himself preparing to start a new vérité-style film project right as City were ready to announce their entry into America’s 20-year-old soccer league. Yet, the final result of Win! is about as far from PR promotional product as one could imagine. Using unprecedented access to locker rooms, player retreats and board rooms, Justin Webster’s new documentary gives an intimate look into the lives and struggles of a professional soccer organization going through the ups and downs of its founding.

In his sit down interview with Way Too Indie from the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, Win! director Justin Webster talks about getting access to world-renowned superstars like David Villa and Frank Lampard, the challenge of vérité-style documentary filmmaking, and making calculations about how much information to make explicit.

How embedded did you want to become in this process? How day-to-day was your involvement following the birth of NYCFC?
Justin Webster: For viable, practical reasons, and budget reasons, we couldn’t follow the whole thing for a year and a half every day. So we had about four and a half months of filming and I had to choose when to go. It was spread out to try to capture the twists, stories and the characters. Sometimes things happen that needs to get covered by somebody else. But as this style of filming isn’t that easy to do, that was a challenge, too. So to get somebody else to film while we weren’t there wasn’t the ideal situation. My production team is highly trained and highly skilled in this kind of filming.

The vérité style really lends a really immersive aspect to Win! It gives an unfiltered look at professional athletes that isn’t often on display. Was it tricky to coordinate, or to get these athletes to open up and allow themselves to curse or say something off-color on camera?
Sure. There’s a whole art to this observational filming, done well. Part of it is explaining very carefully and then filming an awful lot. Because when they trust you and they ignore you, then you’re in the position to start getting some real scenes.

And you may not [get good footage], you may be filming for hours and hours and hours and nothing gets into the cut. The team filming has to be on the same level of attention the whole time. When it comes to the players, we got along very well. They very, very graciously ignored us.

And enough to get some of those really candid, interesting moments that anyone interested in the sport wants to see. Those little interactions between a coach and a player or a coach and a manager aren’t normally for public consumption. Was part of your interest in capturing those moments that might seem minor but reveal bits of personality?
I couldn’t put it better myself, in fact. People ask me, “What was the message of the film?” and in a way the message of the film was the style. You see what you think you know, but you don’t really know until you see it. It’s like they’re acting. They’re not acting, but if an actor glances one way, or twitches some way, or looks up, it becomes much more revealing. You see everything in a slightly different light. It’s like actually being there, and that’s stimulating for you to think about what you thought you knew. I think you put it better. Those little details can be very revealing.

There’s a version of this movie that could be made where you explain the MLS rules of the expansion draft, or the protected players clauses; however, a lot of it is left for the viewer to piece together. How much of a calculation is that for you? Explaining the complexities of a world without become bogged down by those intricacies?
Well, that’s a really interesting point when it comes to making film. You need to tell enough that it’s not confusing, but if you start telling too much it becomes boring. Things like the expansion draft, even Claudio and Jason when we interviewed them said, “I’m not sure we can explain it completely,” it’s so complicated. You just have to know enough so you’re not confused. So you know the in expansion draft they’re competing to get some players, actually American players. That’s the important thing.

I’m hoping, and it was a calculation, you’re right, that I put in the right layer of information so that it helps the story, because there is a storyline about how this is the tipping point of soccer in the US, for instance, and the pressures around that.

You pick up that this is this post-World Cup wave, but it’s only a few clips in the actually movie where we see them. Is that something you decide to include in post or is this something you feel you have a natural felt would be part of the story?
I have a boring, kind of [mantra] I repeat again and again. I always say that you have to have two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time and still maintain the ability to function, which is a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald. The two ideas are, “this is the script,” “there is no script.” So you start off with an idea. And so those sort of ideas about the World Cup and where we were, I think they’re always there.

Of course, just a little is enough. Threading in the right level of information, the longer cuts were around 2.5 hours. I started editing fairly early on. It’s a process. With any luck you end up with everything in the right kind of proportion.

You mentioned that you lived in Spain, and you get some really great access with David Villa in the documentary. Was your ability to speak with him or relate to him part of what facilitated getting some of those honest, revealing moments where you see him frustrated with his inability to communicate?
I think so. It’ll be very interesting to see what he says. It wasn’t necessarily easy to film closely with anybody, and he opened up steadily. The fact that we speak Spanish – not just me but the director of photography, my assistant director and producer, the sound person, we’re all bilingual Spanish-English. We talked a lot with David’s father, as well, when he came to training sessions. I think it all helped; building trust like that was essential.

With her background as the star and creator of Pulling, as well as her other work British TV shows, Sharon Horgan has become a recognizable face on British television; however, her latest show Catastrophe marks her first with an American audience. The Channel 4 / Amazon Studios co-production dropped its entire second season earlier in April, picking up years after the drama of the first season, with Rob and Sharon (the show’s co-creators Horgan & Rob Delaney share first names with their characters) married and struggling to raise two children. Both seasons of the Catastrophe are not only hysterically funny, they’re warm and optimistic in a way that runs counter to many cynical, modern TV comedies.

In her short interview with Way Too Indie on the red carpet for Catastrophe‘s panel at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, Sharon Horgan discusses the advantage television has when developing romantic comedies, the importance of making a show that was more than just gags, and why it’s better to just laugh at Rob’s jokes on screen.

Romantic comedies in film haven’t been quite as popular this decade as they were in the past; however, the first season of your show Catastrophe, as well as several others on TV right now, function as really successful romantic comedies. Do you think romantic comedies function better in that episodic format rather than in film?

I guess it does but it’s also easier to make a romantic comedy because you’re not pandering to a huge audience. I think a lot of romantic comedy in film is aimed at a massive audience, so you’ve got to tick a lot of boxes and please a lot of people. The only people we had to please [on Catastrophe] were ourselves.

Also, we never thought about it as a romantic comedy so we weren’t trying to fit it into a formula. I think that can sometimes be the problem with romantic comedy in film. It has to hit all [those] beats.

We had an easy job. I think it’s harder on film but it’d be fun to have a go.

You and Rob Delaney have a delightful chemistry on the show, even small details like laughing at one another’s jokes really illustrates the healthy dynamic between your characters as a couple.

Yeah, I mean it is a bit of a cheat because it’s easier to laugh when someone says something funny on film than not laugh. But also, the big thing about the characters and why they like each other is because they find each other funny. Any romance or relationship is generally – apart from sex – based on someone who makes you laugh.

We thought it was really, really important that even in season two, even when they’re in the deep quagmires of marriage that they still made each other laugh. It just felt like more of an honest representation. I don’t think anyone tells anyone a joke in real life and they meet it with a frozen face.

But that is something you’re consciously making sure is a part of the dynamic?

Sure, but also it’s easier to do it that way. It’s easier when Rob says something funny to just laugh.

Your characters face adversity, different ups and down on the show, but it retains a hopefulness throughout. Was that something you wanted to be part of Catastrophe from the onset or did that come from writing the show?

It was really important from the outset. I think we both got to a point in our lives where we felt like we didn’t just want to make a show with a load of gags. We wanted it to be saying something and to hit all those spots. So that people who are watching feel that we’re invested in them and therefore they’ll invest in us. None of it’s easy. Having kids isn’t easy. Being married isn’t easy and we kind of wanted to tell people that things can be ok. All these terrible, shitty things can happen to you but there’s quite often a light at the end of the tunnel, and you’ll get through it.

I think comedy is just such a brilliant medium for that. It’s so great to be able to talk about serious subjects through making people laugh.

Feeling oddly jealous—and embarrassed about that jealousy—when her sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Sophie Goodhart began developing a story about a tense sibling relationship largely built around resentment. That inspiration led to her 2003 short film My Blind Brother, which at the time seemed like a launching point for her smooth transition into feature filmmaking. “Since then I’ve had three or four films green-lit, ready to go, and then something happened,” Sophie laments from the Tribeca Film Festival. Her new feature-length directorial debut, also titled My Blind Brother, has been a long time coming, but the version Sophie finally got to make comes with a standout cast.

In her interview with Way Too Indie, My Blind Brother writer / director Sophie Goodhart discusses the long path to production for her debut, spending her option money too quickly, and the benefits of working with longtime friends like Nick Kroll, Adam Scott, and Jenny Slate.

I wanted to ask you about the film’s journey into development because this is a story that’s personal to you, but it’s also a movie that was based on a short film that you had directed.
Sophie Goodhart: Yeah, [the idea started with] my sister being diagnosed with M.S. [multiple sclerosis] when I was in my early twenties. I was sort of embarrassed and kind of surprised to find that I was feeling kind of jealous—and really embarrassed by my jealousy—about the fact that I knew that she was always going to be this incredible hero that battled against great misfortune. So that’s where the short came from.

I got incredibly lucky and worked with three great actors—Tony Hale, John Mattey and Marsha Dietlein—in the original. The short kind of got me agents, and got me certain contacts. Immediately I got these films optioned, and I was like, “Look at me, I’m about to really do it!” I had parties where I bought lots of people drinks where I celebrated my success. Unfortunately, I was, like, way, way, way too soon. I realized that was an expensive mistake to make.

Since then I’ve had three or four films greenlit, ready to go, and then something happened. 2008 happened, everyone needed their money and you couldn’t make films. Or one of the actors leaves and I can’t find a replacement or you couldn’t spend a certain budget on the film. I was writing something completely separate from [My Blind Brother], and was just focused on the Jenny Slate character—about a woman who was going out with this guy who gets killed by a bus just after she’s dumped him. She feels terrible, she kind of hates herself and finds herself on a weird path where she would have been a tragic victim and instead she was just a cruel ex-girlfriend. I realized that her story fit really, really well with this other story so I put them together in this feature. I had to wait around for the perfect cast, the perfect three people, who would mean that I could get over a million to shoot the movie.

There’s a way to interpret the logline of this movie as a broad, Mr. Magoo-style comedy, but your movie stays very tethered to reality. Was there an impulse to go broader or do you prefer to keep your writing grounded?
SG: I always write about things I’m feeling, or worrying about, or have experienced in one way or another. You know, I could research the whole world, or a new environment or a new job, but to have that kind of basic character issue that I’m not connected to I think would make it difficult. I think that the fact that it’s based on some of these feelings that I’ve had, meant that it could [depict] a mean-spirited aspect of humanity. Because it wasn’t just an outsider looking in and mocking it. It was something familiar that I felt and believed.

You had mentioned your three lead actors came aboard as a kind of package. How did you get Jenny Slate, Adam Scott, and Nick Kroll all become involved?
SG: It’s one of those things where you never know which people you meet in your life are going to be the ones to make things happen. It turned out that Sharon Jackson at William Morris Endeavor really connected to the movie, and she had confidence in it. She had enough power to make connections to these people. But I didn’t know that when I initiated talking to her. I wasn’t like, “This is the woman that’s gonna package it.”

The three people who kind of made it happen were my initial producer, Tori, who found the short film. That was reassuring and good news for people doing shorts is that [making them] actually can make a huge difference. Somebody can like it, and they can mention you to try and help you get a feature. Then, Sharon; it’s not often in big agent’s interests to put their time into small films—and this kind of a low budget indie film—but she took a fancy to it and sent it to these bigger actors. Finally, Tyler Davidson saw [our cast], read the script and was like, “Fine, I’m happy to give you a bit more money” than he originally would have been inclined to. It just takes so many happy accidents to get off the ground. And it took such a long time. I felt like I was ready for those happy accidents.

Sometimes it can feel fated in a way.
SG: Yeah, I think after 13 years sitting in my kitchen writing I was like, “oh my god.” It was only hardcore delusion and denial that has meant that I made this because any other human would have just thought, “fuck this, it’s not working.”

What was it like for Jenny Slate and Nick Kroll—who have worked together several times before—and to work with them on developing a romantic dynamic, especially one that is played pretty straight throughout?
SG: With Jenny and Nick and Adam, you just get this unbelievable mix of people who are so intelligent and so good at acting. So nimble about playing jokes and playing them so straight or so small, that they can do pretty much anything. When they read this script, they knew that it was this romantic element, and I didn’t want to play it jokingly. I think they totally delivered. I think the fact that they’re friends meant that I didn’t have to do as much work as I might’ve. And there’s such a beautiful ease between them that I could just say, “And kiss now,” and they just were comfortable, grown-up and intelligent. They were good at acting so it was easy.

What other movies and directors did you look to for influence when putting this movie together?
SG: Two directors that I love are James L. Brooks and Elaine May. I also looked to David O. Russell and Silver Linings Playbook. Then, Knife in the Water, even though tonally it’s so weird—I love the kind of graphic quality of [Polanski’s] work. Elaine May! Her original The Heartbreak Kid is just so fucking good. So those are my inspirations, obviously.

There aren’t many professions in which asking your co-workers whether or not they’ve participated in an orgy is part of regular life, and even fewer outside of the adult film industry. Between Us filmmaker Rafael Palacio Illingworth doesn’t want to shy away from exploring sexual fantasy, as well as the disparity between those desires and reality. It’s what prompted him to appear fully naked as the lead actor in his debut feature film Macho. It’s also what inspires his deeply intimate story about a couple tempted with adultery in Between Us.

As for the filmmaker’s penchant for asking frank, sexually-skewed questions of his co-stars during their first meetings over coffee, Rafael explains that he was seeking, “an assurance that we can tell an honest story. For me, when somebody shows up and he comes with his social media in mind or publicist in mind, all these things are blocks to the story. If they have a problem with telling that truth then I have a problem.”

In Rafael Palacio Illingworth’s interview on Between Us with Way Too Indie during the Tribeca Film Festival, the filmmaker discusses the real-life spat that inspired the movie, what types of questions he peppered the actors with prior to casting, and how Mad Men helped put Ben Feldman on the director’s radar.

What lead you to the creation of Between Us?

I developed it for three years but the idea first came to me a couple years before that. I had this fight with my girlfriend, and I stormed out of the apartment – which I had never done before – and then walking I thought to myself, “What I find the perfect girl right now?”

Of course, that never happened. I came back 20 minutes after. Actually, I’m married to her now, even. It was then I realized that all these fantasies are more like an antidote for your anger than anything [else]. It’s easy to think, “If I leave you I’ll have a line of girls waiting for me.” But the reality is not that.

So that idea came a long time ago and I wanted to shoot it as an unscripted thing before having my first child – only child for now – but I didn’t have time. So then I connected with Caviar [Production Company, which also produced last year’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl] and it just organically happened from there with a script.

How did the idea mold from your writing process?

Talking about these impulses – these kinds of naïve impulses – of doing something unscripted and powerful. Usually, at that point, your ideas are like, “I’m going to do a movie about everything.” You know? [A movie] about everything that’s ever existed. QW you sit down to write the words and realize you have to translate whatever you’re feeling to something it becomes real.

I think the process was really good for the project, and really helped shape it into something because it had to become real and intimate. For example, there are these bookends of the clouds. The movie used to be called The Force, up until recently. Because it spoke about that force always wants to push us around and make you think there’s someone else around; all this temptation and desire. In early versions of the script, [this sense] came from outer space to the inner world through clouds.

I realized whatever it is, it’s between them. It’s there in that apartment where they’re sitting. In front of them, between them, no pun intended.

That [process] is what I went through for the whole script. It was a grand story that tried to talk about everything until we shaved it down to be about this intimate couple and these struggles that they have.

Right, at some point you have to hone in on your focus.

So finding that was the challenge but compared to the general structure, the script didn’t change much. It was always the story of this guy walking out of the house in a rage and then dealing with the consequences of finding this girl that he thinks is the perfect girl.

How early did you get Ben Feldman and Olivia Thirlby involved, and what made you know they’d be right for their parts?

When we went out to start casting it was very important for us to get that main couple right. First, we started going out to guys. The first person that really responded on my list of preferred guys was Ben. This was when he had just finished Mad Men, and he had done an amazing job there. He liked the script. At that moment he hadn’t done any dramatic films, he had only been in horror films.

So I found it interesting that he was not a guy who would come with his own baggage or his own brand. He responded to [the script], we met, had a nice conversation and we connected really well as friends. That was the most important thing to me because being a small movie I needed someone that I could trust that was going to help me out. Whatever that means.

I wasn’t experienced in directing A-list actors, so I also wanted to be open in expressing what I was expecting and what I was fearing. I shared all that and I realized this guy’s a friend. We barely talked about our film; it was more about, “Where do you live? What do you like?” I knew we could sit down for a coffee regardless of any movie. That was what made me think that this guy was going to be right.

After [Ben was cast] we went out for girls, and Olivia also responded [to the script]. Funny enough they hadn’t met until after they were both cast. I had the same experience with Olivia when we met. In a different way, obviously, but I also felt like she was into exploring, and helping, and being open. I realized that if they both can do this then the three of us could do it. It was risky but I think it was fine and they’re both so open and nice.

Were those conversations with the actors partially about their own views toward love or intimacy, since those feelings play such major roles in Between Us?

Yes, I think most of our conversations were about our very private lives. Look, I have nothing to lose. Everything’s on the screen. Sometimes I would just come to them and say, “How is it? You’re married. Have you ever cheated? Have you ever gone to an orgy?” It was all these things. It was kind of rushed, very quick, but it was nice. The advantage that I have is that my movies are clearly self-referential so there’s no secret. I’m not talking about a character.

Especially if you’ve seen my first feature film, which has me acting [in it] and I also get naked. That gave me a really good platform to say, “It’s not going to be as explicit as my first movie but it is in this world of honesty.” I don’t want the camera or the Hollywood desires to be in front of us telling an honest story.

So I would ask if they were okay getting naked or how okay they were with sex scenes. How not [okay they were]. Where could I go with it. I had that conversation with Ben although he had no nudity [in the movie]. It was just about knowing that if needed we will go there.

And also to know that they would be open to feeling that necessity. They could suggest it to me. Which would happen with Olivia. Sometimes I would be like, “Cover her here,” to be very proper and she would say, “Come on, it has to be real.” I expect that and those are the things I make clear from the beginning.

From their collected experiences around Hollywood, both screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker and animation director Chris Prynoski are familiar with the trappings of fame, as well as the desperation of those without it to attain it. Wearing a pair of outfits that Walker noted, “could combine for a really great Hunter S. Thompson costume,” the Nerdland creative team was at ease discussing the first feature film to emerge from animation house Titmouse, Inc. where Prynoski also helms Metalocalypse. Nerdland (read our review) takes a satirical look at a pair of ne’er do well Los Angeles roommates—aspiring actor John (Paul Rudd) and wanna’ be screenwriter Elliot (Patton Oswalt)—hung up on fantasies of making it big in the movies.

In their sit-down interview with Way Too Indie, Andrew Kevin Walker and Chris Prynoski discuss Nerdland‘s nihilistic vision of modern society, their shared appreciation for improv in moderation, and how the dream of writing the Great American novel has shifted.

What was the launching point for this story?

Andrew Kevin Walker: It was an original script I wrote and I tried in different ways to get it made. It was written to be live action – that was kind of the way I imagined it. It’s kind of loosely based on mine, and my best friend John’s life, trying to break into showbiz.

I tried to get it made as an animated TV show; I took the script and broke it down into smaller episodes then left it open-ended. Then when that didn’t happen because no one was interested, I broke it down into little five minute, bite-sized pieces that probably would have added up to one feature but they were made to be little internet shorts and that didn’t work out.

So I just regrouped again. I went back to the feature and I tightened it up. I had been watching and loving Metalocalypse and all the stuff that Titmouse, Inc. does. I’m wondering, “who are these geniuses? These mysterious weirdos who do all this amazing animation.” I managed through agents to get a meeting where I went with my script, they took a look at it, and it was a beautiful thing from there on.

Chris Prynoski: A lot of times you get these scripts and there’s a lot of work that has to be done, but this was very clear. I’ve been those people, I know those people, our studio exists in that neighborhood. It was very clear, I could see how this would worked and I was super stoked.

So the script you brought in to Titmouse was the feature version?

AKW: It was the feature version and that’s what we ended up doing. Fully independent, self-financed, sweat equity feature.

That’s despite Titmouse having not done a feature to that point?

CP: Yeah, we work on features. We do pre-production on features but our own movie that we have control over. We’ve done some direct-to-TV features but this was our first real feature that we had control over. I’m stoked, I’m really proud of it.

There’s a real nihilistic presentation to the world of these characters – is that your general perspective on society?

AKW: I think it’s exclusively about the entertainment industry and the kind of sweaty-palmed desperation you have when you’re outside looking in, trying to get in. I do think it’s interesting that in modern day society, fame can be this big (Andrew spreads his hands apart) like it always was, or fame can be this big (Andrew holds two fingers an inch away from one another). Small fame can become big fame and go back to small fame again then you really want another taste of that.

I don’t think there’s as many people looking to write the great American novel like there used to be, I think everyone’s either trying to write the great American screenplay or shoot the great American YouTube video. Looking in at Hollywood at this point is just kind of looking out at the world, in a way.

There’s a de-evolution in our popular entertainment that you can see through these characters aspirations – is that something concerning for either of you?

CP: I don’t know if it’s concerning as much as it is the way it is. It’s not like we’re trying to be like, “Hey, we’re making this important movie that’s going to change the way things work. If people just like watch this they’re going to have this revelation.” It’s more like, “Hey, this sucks, right?”

AKW: Yeah, isn’t this funny?

CP: This is the way we live. It’s funny, it’s weird. Society is obsessed with fame for fame’s sake.

AWK: Hopefully there’s a certain amount of recognition – especially for our peers. It does go beyond that now since everybody can be famous in their own way, in their smaller or larger social circle.

CP: Yeah you’ve got a phone. You can make your own YouTube video. Everybody’s got their own movie studio.

Andrew, a lot of your previous writing had been comedic but not quite so overtly comedic. You mentioned you had been working on this script for quite a while, was this your desire to do an out-and-out comedy?

AKW: I really do love comedy, I watch a lot of comedy. Humor comes into everything that you’re writing – no matter how serious or self-serious it is. I’ve written darker stuff that’s kind of balanced with comedy and this is almost a comedy that’s balanced with darkness.

Chris, when it comes to the character design, many of the characters have traditionally attractive features that get exaggerated in discomforting ways. What kind of calculation did you make to decide how far out the look of the world would be?

CP: Oh it was definitely a calculation because these days it’s kind of – in a weird way – easier to make stuff look beautiful and shiny and clean. With computers that’s the default. We made a conscious effort to make this very crunchy and rough around the edges. [Make it] feel like hand-drawn drawings. Not use a lot of the bag of tricks we use on other things like there’s no depth of field in this, there’s hardly any lighting on the characters – really just used in special circumstances – there’s not a lot of the, like, fancy stuff we use on other productions.

We really wanted to make this feel almost like films that were shot under an oxberry. You know, the production designer Antonio Canoobio, we really wanted to challenge ourselves by not going slick with it. It sounds kind of counter-intuitive.

That has its own appeal, too. It’s a distinctive look. People talk a lot about “the Adult Swin aesthetic” but it’s got its own distinctive style so it’s not so easy to just lump them all together.

CP: I think it’s more of a sensibility or a tone than an aesthetic with the Adult Swim stuff. I did the first character lineup but beyond that I pretty much handed the whole movie character-wise to Joe Bennett, who did most of the character designs. Obviously I had input on it but you see a lot of his hand there. He’s got a great mind for comedic detail. Little things you’ll notice on the characters that are really, really smart.

At what point did Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt become involved and what did they help bring to Nerdland?

CP: Patton was the first actor of any of the actors to get involved. He had done voices for other cartoons and is a fan of Andy’s. He said yes in the room to it, which was great, and kind of had a cascade effect.

As far as stuff that those guys added… it’s interesting. The way I record, is you record the exact page, you do a loose pass and then you do an improv pass. These guys did so much incredible improve but what ended up in the film was really, largely, what the script was. There’s heightened parts where we used the imrpov but it’s all woven in to what’s there on the page.

AKW: Patton and Paul did amazing improv. Paul Scheer really stuck out to me. He was insanely amazing. Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome in a way had such thankless parts and they made a lot of very little. But every actor did improv in great ways.

I think Chris was very judicious in choosing a balance between improv keeping the flow moving forward. I think we’ve all seen improv where you see a piece of a film get caught in an improv bubble for a minute. You’re kind of there on the day with them, appreciating that moment, and it might be a little longer than maybe [necessary] and then things get started again. So I think [Chris] was kind of great in judging stuff and choosing it very thoughtfully.

CP: Yeah it’s so easy to get caught up when you’re in the booth recording with these guys making you laugh. It’s like, “That’s great! That’s genius!” Having done Metalocalypse it happens all the time. There’s so much more than we can use in any episode. You really, really have to work hard on focusing. Not falling in love with something that is not going to work or ultimately not work as well.

AKW: It’s almost like unless you were there on the day it’s not the same. It stops the movie for a second. But that’s what blooper reels and Blu-Ray extras are for.

At some point you have to kill your darlings.

AKW: Absolutely. Or the darling has to be the thing from the script that gets taken out, and the improv goes in its place.

CP: I got to say, too, the combination of Paul and Patton – they had such good chemistry together. You really felt that these guys knew each other very well, they lived together, they were roommates. These guy were recording on opposite coasts. They could hear each other and see each other on a screen but Paul was in New York and Patton was in LA.

They made these characters likable while they were riding a dangerous line where people could have just checked out and been like, “these guys are assholes and I’m not with them anymore.”

AKW: The most embarrassing thing for me… Every actor was bringing so much more to everything that was on the page. I would be the one laughing the hardest at my own stuff I had written. To hear Patton Oswalt’s voice saying these lines after all this time living with it on the page, and then Paul Rudd and on and on from top to bottom… there’s not a lot in here by an actor or actress you don’t know.

For Rudd and Oswalt particularly they’re not even altering their voices much, it’s a lot through their natural congeniality.

AKW: And also I think it’s selling the friendship between them. It lets you keep caring about them no matter what semi-despicable things they discuss doing and attempt to do.

Is there a future for the characters of Nerdland?

AKW: That will be determined out there rather than in this room but they certainly live in my heart.

CP: I’d love to work with Andy again on something, who knows.

AKW: We’re already trying to figure out what to be able to do next together. It was just the best experience ever.

Even actors Lindsay Burdge and Arthur Martinez have trouble separating what’s real and what’s fiction from their new movie Actor Martinez. A documentary-style film ostensibly about Arthur’s life as a Denver-area actor, the plot takes a meta-narrative twist when filmmakers Nathan Silver and Mike Ott interrupt the docudrama – in several scenes with the actors – to nudge the film in more interesting directions. “You would feel like you’re authoring something,” began Lindsay, “but it’s like—I honestly don’t know to what extent they were just manipulating me into thinking I was doing these things on my own. I just don’t know.”

Arthur, supposedly the initiating force behind the movie, often appears to be the biggest subject of the filmmakers’ manipulation. Or is he helping to pull the strings alongside Mike and Nathan? In this sit-down with Way Too Indie, Actor Martinez stars Lindsay Burdge and Arthur Martinez discuss the complex concept behind their new film, the freedom of working without rehearsal and the livewire aspect to its production.

Actor Martinez recently held its US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.

How did this project first come to you both?

Arthur: I was actually, inadvertently, one of the pitchers. I didn’t know what I was pitching for. I knew I was throwing, but I didn’t expect this weird curveball.

Lindsay: Nathan [Silver] and I had hung out at another film festival shortly before he pitched this to me. Then, we were in New York and he said, “We came up with this movie in Denver, we want to make it soon. Do you want to do it?” He said it was about a man, Arthur, and this woman falling in love. I was supposed to be a gardener or something like that and it was supposed to be a regular movie. Next thing I knew months had passed and I was sent this outline which was not that movie at all.

Arthur: Wow, you got an outline though.

Lindsay: You knew that [Laughs].

Arthur: That still blows my mind [Laughs].

Lindsay: I know! I got an outline and it said, “Arthur does this.” Then it says, “Lindsay Burdge, actress from New York, does this.” I was like, “Oh, this is not the movie that I thought we were making at all.”

Arthur: I still haven’t seen the outline. That’s why I’m amazed at what she’s saying. She’s told me this before and I still have a hard time believing it.

Once you actually got into the production phase, were you anticipating the extent to which this would blend between documentary and narrative? Were you caught off guard when you were actually filming?

Arthur: That whole film is me caught off guard. Yeah, no, they didn’t tell me anything. They went to extra pains to hide what was happening. They would hide me off set somewhere and have somebody guard me so I wouldn’t go look beforehand.

What’s it like going into that situation where you don’t have that safety harness—or a script—to guide you?

Arthur: My classical training got in the way. I had to throw it out. You just have to throw it out. So after the first three days, I figured just throw it out.

Lindsay: There was definitely an adjustment period. I definitely knew more than Arthur did, about how it was going to be this blended thing, but there were a couple layers that I didn’t know were going to be there. I knew I was going to be playing myself. I knew I was going to be playing this character, but then there were these other characters also that I didn’t know I was going to have to sort out.

So the first day was very stressful and the second day got a little less stressful and then it became fun once I understood the rules, but until I knew the rules of the game we were playing it was very stressful and uncomfortable. We didn’t have anything really to hold onto at first. There’s no script, there’s no character, and so we weren’t working on a scene together. It was more like manipulating each other [Laughs].

Arthur: She’s right. They used us as weapons against each other and I’m sorry about some of those things I had to say [Laughs].

Lindsay: You got me once. I was like, “Ah nice, they got me. The tables have turned. Fair enough.”

It sounds a lot like theater exercises, almost more so than the traditional narrative structure of film. Did you find it liberating at all?

Lindsay: Yes, I thought it was really fun. It became really fun for me.

Arthur: Yeah, it was always scary, but I’m down.

Lindsay: Sometimes you had fun, right?

Arthur: Well… yeah. I mean, there’s a reason I did this. It’s like riding a roller coaster, I’ve been screaming the whole time. It’s awesome.

Lindsay: But also, we were playing different games. We had different rules that we’re playing by. Because you were like, “I’m going to know nothing,” and I was like, “I gotta know something.”

Arthur: I don’t remember actually making that rule, I think that was [co-directors] Mike [Ott] and Nathan [Silver].

Lindsay: I remember saying to you, “Do you want me to sneak you the outline?” And you were like, “No no no.”

Arthur: Nah, you can’t mess with the director. Not on set.

It must take a lot of faith then to just throw yourself into that process and trust it.

Arthur: You trust the talent that you’re working for. It was a lot of pressure to make sure if they spent five hours setting up a shot that I actually did my job. Which is difficult when you don’t know what your job is, but that’s ok. You just do it. Hope for the best.

Lindsay: It was mostly just being. At least from watching you, it seemed like just being kind of open and available and reacting, which was cool to watch actually.

There’s a lot of tension though in some of those interactions. How much of that was authentic?

Arthur: You just defined acting. Serious, that’s the definition of acting and if it’s not, you’re not doing your job.

Lindsay: I think some of it was definitely real and some of it was manipulated. And I’m not sure Arthur still knows which is which [Laughs].

Arthur: I don’t know. I’m just going with it.

Lindsay: And I don’t either sometimes. Some of those times, I think we were recreating that tension or the tension was to swerve the plot of the movie, which there is actually a plot. Other times it was real frustration. It was fun kind of fun for me. Sometimes I felt like your advocate.

Arthur: Thank you, I did need that. It was brutal. They just beat up on me until she showed up. They’d got me so far off what I realized center was and she did a great deal to re-center me.

Lindsay: And also just to have somebody else say, “This is frustrating.”

It gave you a partner in the process.

Lindsay: Sometimes they would do this thing where they were like, “I don’t know, I’ve worked with a lot of different actors who don’t have a problem with this kind of work.” And I’m like, “Oh yeah? I know a lot of them, and they do.”

How much of what’s on the screen do you actually feel responsible for injecting into the narrative?

Arthur: This is like taking bunch of colors—everybody who worked on this—and swirling them all together. How much of that is me? I can’t even tell anymore, maybe none of it. Maybe some of it. I don’t know.

Lindsay: Did you even suggest shooting in your apartment?

Arthur: That was a resource, yes. That was the purpose of it. I didn’t know we were going to shoot what we shot.

Lindsay: I still don’t know what he’s… I don’t trust this guy.

Arthur: I don’t trust me either. It’s crazy.

Lindsay: I don’t how much of it is you… because I arrived and it was already underway.

Arthur: You’re right about that. I was part of the early production process, I just didn’t know what was coming out of it. I just made the decision to trust Mike and Nathan. Those guys are crazy.

Now that you’ve had the chance to see the final film, how closely did it resemble what you thought you were making?

Lindsay: Very closely for me.

Arthur: Ok, I’m down with that. It must have matched the outline at least.

Lindsay: It didn’t match the outline. The outline was four pages long and had almost nothing in it, but it matched what I felt like we were making while we were making it.

Are there any things from this experience, the looseness of it, that you maybe miss in other films that you make?

Arthur: I think they all should be different. They’re all very different experiences and that’s ok.

Lindsay: I feel like there definitely was a sort of livewire element to this because we had to be so on our toes and just ready to go with whatever came at us. Nothing ever became polished, which was really nice. Often we would do a scene and I’d be like, “So are gonna do that again?” And they’d be like, “No! We got it, that was great!” And I’m like, “We did it one time! Don’t you want to do it again? It’ll be better.” And they were just like, “No.”

I liked that. I like how fresh it was, and it would be interesting to think about how to bring that to other stuff. We had to be so quick on our feet. But I don’t know how you could bring that to something when you’ve read the whole script and you know exactly what you’re saying.

Is it wrong to think about this film as percentages? As 50% documentary, 50% fiction?

Lindsay: You’d probably be wrong if you tried to divide it. Even if we tried to divide it. I still don’t know how much Arthur knew what was going on all the time.

Arthur: She’s right, I was part of the initial production, but it was definitely different [by the end]. There’s no way to identify what’s real or not in the scene. I can say this part of the scene is real. I’m sure it would be like reading a story about yourself in a tabloid. In many ways, this is a tabloid film.

The sinister potential of New Age practices gets explored yet again in Karl Mueller’s Rebirth, a psychological thriller continuing the somewhat recent trend of films about cults like Faults, The Invitation, and Martha Marcy May Marlene. This time, rather than taking inspiration from the likes of the Manson family or Jonestown, Rebirth bases its eponymous enlightenment group off of the Church of Scientology, and anyone vaguely familiar with L. Ron Hubbard’s creepy “religion” will pick up on the influence within minutes. And while Mueller provides enough intrigue to keep viewers guessing, he has a hard time coming up with a proper conclusion for his small-scale mind games.

Kyle (Fran Kranz) is a typical upper-middle-class office drone, living in a big suburban home with his wife and daughter and spending his days working at a bank in the city. An opening montage establishes the happy monotony of Kyle’s life, which soon gets interrupted when his old college friend Zack (Adam Goldberg) shows up at his work. Zack asks Kyle to cancel all his weekend plans and participate with him in something called Rebirth, which he only describes as “an experience.” Kyle bristles at the boldness of his old friend’s proposal, but he decides to go for it after succumbing to his nostalgic feelings.

Things get weird in a short amount of time, as the hotel Kyle checks himself into for the weekend getaway turns out to be a ruse. A series of clues leads him to a bus filled with dozens of other men, all of whom have to hand over their cell phones and wear blindfolds for the entire ride while they’re taken to Rebirth’s real location. Upon arriving, Kyle and the other bus passengers get taken to a room where a man (Steve Agee) explains Rebirth’s anti-establishment philosophies, making it sound like some sort of college bro’s attempt at copying Chuck Palahniuk. From there, several strange events draw Kyle away from the main group and off into a sort of hellish funhouse, exploring a derelict building where each room offers a different, stranger facet of what Rebirth has to offer.

This section of the film turns out to be its strongest, even though its structure and influences are plain as day. Kyle bounces from room to room, and every door he opens functions as an excuse for Mueller to come up with a bizarre situation to throw his protagonist into. An early highlight involves Kyle stumbling into some kind of support group whose leader (Andrew J. West) torments people both physically and psychologically. It’s a gripping sequence, but it’s a borderline remake of the classroom scenes in Whiplash. Plenty of other influences pop up throughout Rebirth, including David Fincher’s The Game and Charlie Brooker’s TV series Black Mirror, but these comparisons aren’t complimentary; it just shows that Mueller is a competent copycat.

On the other hand, Mueller’s focus is squarely on creating an entertaining game of figuring out what’s real or part of Rebirth, and Kranz and the committed ensemble (including Harry Hamlin and Pat Healy, who take full advantage of their small roles) make the film’s transparent qualities easier to forgive. It’s in the final act, when the group starts exerting its influence on Kyle’s personal life, that the screenplay starts to break down. By breaking away from Rebirth’s controlled environment and into the real world, the plausibility of the whole scenario gets extremely thin, but not as thin as whatever message Mueller tries to tack on in the closing minutes. After an abrupt ending, the film switches over to one of Rebirth’s promotional videos while the credits roll. The video, a deliberate attempt to mimic Scientology’s promos (including the infamous Tom Cruise video), makes the whole film feel like the set-up for a corny punchline. A brief section of the video, where Rebirth promotes its branded product line, suggests a bit of a sly commentary on New Age ideas getting swallowed up by capitalist interests, but it’s drowned out by the parodic, wink-nudge nature of the clip.

Gangly-armed or thick-necked with off-colored skin tones or noses—the harshly drawn inhabitants of Nerdland don’t have the benefit of beauty to mask their ugly insides. They’re off-putting even when appealing. Like many of the character designs on Adult Swim cartoon shows, the characters’ distinctive features are sharpened and exaggerated in ways that makes their appearances unsettling. It should be no surprise that Nerdland comes from Chris Prynoski (Metalocalypse, Motorcity), veteran of the late night Cartoon Network universe, where absurdist and divisive humor has thrived for the past couple decades.

In the heart of the entertainment industry, nearly 30-year-old roommates John (voiced by Paul Rudd) and Elliot (Patton Oswalt) feel their shot at world fame is dwindling. At first, both seem like familiar characters repurposed for Nerdland’s grimy, stoner sketchbook aesthetic. The pair live together in a rundown Hollywood apartment with old beer bottles and pizza boxes strewn across the floor. Elliot, a would-be screenwriter, who spends more time on the couch playing video games than writing (a depressing familiar conceit) ends up penning a script about a vengeful Rip Van Winkle waking from his slumber to shotgun blast open the skulls of strip club patrons. His roommate John—an aspiring actor—is the gentler, naïf, Lenny Small-type. When John tries to pass off Elliot’s script to a well-known movie star, John fumbles the pages and rips his pants in an effort to pick them up, exposing his puckered anus to the crowd.

The hand-drawn feature animation is the first feature from animation house Titmouse, Inc., a smooth transition to the big screen that borrows animated TV comedies’ fast-paced style. Quick cutaways pepper the dialog-heavy moments with visual gags. They reveal the protagonists’ dreams of red carpets lined with adoring fans or boob-filled, heavenly utopias, many of which feel ripped from an angsty teenage boy’s fantasies. But like a random episode of Family Guy, these jokes range in quality from shocking and fun to predictably cynical. Its misanthropic charms often redeem Nerdland, but John and Elliot’s aversion to productivity can become grating to watch for the duration (even if that length is only 83 minutes).

John and Elliot’s pursuit of fame at any twisted cost makes the pair progressively harder to like. Nerdland‘s mocking vision of LA is short on any redeeming personalities. Filled with silly caricatures of the fame-worshipping underclass, it’s clear that the director Prynoski as well as the screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker hate just about every person in this world. And yes, that’s the same Andrew Kevin Walker who wrote Se7en and contributed an uncredited rewrite to Fight Club—a film with similar nihilistic social satire. With a considerably scattershot plot, one which has a somewhat episode design, Nerdland lacks some of the narrative momentum that comes from more cohesive stories.

While a majority of scenes revolve around the funny duo at the cartoon’s center, recognizable voices make cameos throughout. Comedians such as Molly Shannon, Paul Scheer, as well as Garfunkel & Oats’ Kate Micucci & Riki Lindhome make extended appearances. Among the funniest roles, Hannibal Burress’ discomforting slant on the standard, slovenly Comic Book Guy pairs well with his wry delivery. Like many of the notable comedians that lend their voice to Nerdland, Oswalt and Rudd don’t alter their voice for their roles—they’re each well-suited to the characters and make for an amusing, albeit unlikely pairing.

Victims of a media-driven culture, John and Elliot ultimately determine that their shortest path to recognition is through notoriety—though as a hapless pair of unskilled, intermittently unemployed slackers the duo’s ability to accomplish anything is questionable. Some of their antics are hilarious but as the film progresses, many of the bits drag on too long. Prynoski and Walker find some strange insights on their race to the moral bottom with John and Elliot—a commentary that often acts more searing and urgent than it is—but like a developing TV comedy, Nerdland is often best in small patches.