Frownland

MOVIE #1,321 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 01.29.24 Happy New Year, movieheads! I know I stated that I would begin anew in February, but I’ll be using this last week of the month to get a headstart, mostly tying up loose ends. Today I’ve also posted reviews of Wes Anderson’s entire short film output as well as a ranking of his feature filmography. Tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll be posting a whopping eight reviews of kids movies that I saw last year (mostly in the theater). But today we have a special one-off critique of a little flick that some are calling the “Feel Good Movie of the Millennium.” Having closed the book (for now) on the Safdie Bros, his is ‘Safdie-adjacent’: it’s the lone directorial effort from frequent S.B. collaborator Ronald Bronstein (co-writer and editor on all of their full-lengths, as well as the star of what is — in my opinion — their best movie, Daddy Longlegs).

I didn’t really know what to expect from this. Like the early Safdies’ work, it’s shot in a grimey 16mm and is everything that more notable ‘mumblecore’ works wish they were. Dore Mann plays Keith, who might be the most murmuring, sputtering dude in film history. But the anguish and exasperation on his face is so real. I could simply watch shots like this, and live inside the grainy goodness all day…


The tone shifts to Keith’s roommate — a prog-rock-obsessed loser of a different stripe — which was unexpected, but in a good way. Ultimately, it circles back to Keith though, and I did not expect it to get as dark and as bleak as it did. It definitely doesn’t have the levity of a Daddy Longlegs, or to a lesser degree, the heart. The final fifteen minutes are a painstaking experience. But that’s the point. You feel every inch of this guy’s agony. It’s a film I greatly appreciated but really don’t want to spend another second with.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
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Frownland is a 2007 American independent film written and directed by Ronald Bronstein. It stars Dore Mann as Keith, a self-described "troll", who sweats and stutters his way through his job as a door-to-door salesman, dubiously selling coupons to assist people affected by multiple sclerosis. The film is populated by a cast of characters as dysfunctional and full of neuroses as Keith. The title comes from the song "Frownland" off the album Trout Mask Replica, by Captain Beefheart (who suffered from multiple sclerosis). It was released on March 7, 2008.