Don Shanahan
Directed by Jay Duplass, The Baltimorons steps forward as possible proof that the faded mumblecore genre can age with its audience. Since it’s been a minute since the subgenre’s last film of consequence, take a moment to remind yourself of the term’s definition from the history section of Mumblecore.info:
Mumblecore is a wave of low-budget Independent Cinema from the 2000s, shot primarily on digital video, featuring naturalistic performances depicting the social, romantic, and existential lives of contemporary young Americans.
For a good fifteen years, the mumblecore genre was a wellspring of acting and writing talent, including Duplass, his brother Mark, and the Mount Rushmore cornerstones of Joe Swanberg, Lynn Shelton, and Greta Gerwig. Wearing their informality and hearts on their sleeves, they delivered new and tangible domestic stories that found a generation of engaged viewers who matched and connected with the frequently quirky malaise depicted on-screen.
Alas, within the last decade, mumblecore’s moment and wave died down. Swanberg and Jay Duplass stopped making movies. Lynn Shelton lost her battle to leukemia in 2020, and Greta Gerwig graduated to the studio system to become a superstar who hasn’t looked back. What really did the genre in, though, was their core audience growing up. Those “contemporary young Americans” in their mid-to-late twenties and early thirties aged to become fortysomethings. Maturity, coupled with a dose of socioeconomic necessity, forced them to be rid of their old rudderless hang-ups.
Well, leave it to Jay Duplass—20 years after breaking into the indie scene with The Puffy Chair and returning with The Baltimorons for his first directorial effort in 13 years—to show what societal seasoning has come to the mumblecore genre he helped define. The Generation Y Millennials and mumblecore originals carry smartphones in their pockets now, tempting them to detach in introverted ways, but they have arrived at new obstacles and deadlines fitting their age that require tests of wisdom and their welcome brand of person-to-person commiserating.
The Baltimorons opens on a hungover (or possibly still intoxicated) man climbing steps into an attic lit by a single window to the outside. In partial silhouette, the hefty gentleman (TV actor Michael Strassner) tries to hang himself by his belt. It breaks, and an exasperated “really?!” is the lone word of dialogue. Cut to six months later, and former standup comedian Cliff Cashen is six months sober and engaged to be married to the over-protective Brittany (It Follows actress Olivia Luccardi). It’s Christmas Eve, and the two are working their way to her family’s home for a big holiday feast.
In a stroke of bad luck, Cliff breaks a tooth and seeks out an available dentist, sending Brittany ahead on her own. In his painful bumbling, he finds the practice of Dr. Diedre “Didi” Daw (Liz Larsen, in her first film since 2018’s Adam Sander/Chris Rock Netflix vehicle The Week Of). She has found herself spending Christmas alone, where her children visit her ex-husband’s new family, and begrudgingly takes on the oaf’s emergency. While getting taken care of, Cliff’s car is towed, and no Ubers are around after. Frustrated by his irresponsible behavior, but not heartless, Didi agrees to give him a ride to the impound. From this chatty car ride on, The Baltimorons sends our two leads on quite the erratic emprise across Charm City.
Conceptually, these two should not be clicking. Cliff is a classic lovable loser, only a smidge older than the mumblecore norm, with more issues than Sports Illustrated. The more senior Didi is beleaguered enough by work and life to constantly speak with no-nonsense exhaustion that doesn’t typically fit this genre, nor let anyone in. Yet, leave it to Michael Strassner and Liz Larsen—two virtual unknowns—to disarm their characters—and us—completely. His charm and off-kilter anxiety thaws her out, while she comes to welcome his honest attention and gratitude. Jay Duplass has mined a gem of a talent in Baltimore native Strassner, exuding fragility and affability, and polished up the underutilized Larsen for two plum roles here. The way they simply glow together is special.
Playing like a miniature road movie contained to one city and mixed with the dithering saunter of a Woody Allen picture, The Baltimorons embraces the borderline Meet Cute happenstance that intersects these two minorly troubled souls. Jay Duplass, teaming with Strassner on the screenplay, crafts affecting encounters and extended bits that keep sticking them together to face the existential reflection that comes with the holidays. Over the course of their misadventures, Cliff and Didi each get the opportunity to push the other to put themselves out there against a packed-away fear (her facing her former family and him returning to the comedy stage). They needed this today, even if they didn’t need this today.
Mumblecore needed The Baltimorons, too. True to the old recipe, the improvisational nature of the conversations and interactions shows its essentialness for the cast and storytellers. For the audience who has missed the casualness of this style, The Baltimorons is comfort food not unlike the hearty plates both these characters wouldn’t mind partaking in with loved ones before the day is out. The bread-and-butter unpredictability sewn into the narrative builds solid anticipation and cements the pleasing attachment between these accidental characters. Lastly, in quite possibly the best evolutionary improvement of all in advancing a mumblecore arc to a new decade and demographic of viewers, a mumblecore director has finally delivered a signature open-ended conclusion that actually functions as a springboard to a greater future instead of a buzz-killing guillotine. If that’s the new sage wisdom arriving to rediscovered mumblecore, we’ve made it to a better place.
