Mumblecore, if you still want to use that pejorative term for micro-indie film, has slowly been deflating in recent years. Or the players in that supposed scene — a DIY-driven group of friends who shot and self-distributed their films on the cheap — have learned, grown and aren’t so under the radar anymore.
There are few new players on the scene (and the ones that are, such as Kris Swanberg and Katie Aselton aren’t unfamiliar with the territory due to their relationships with their husbands), and the veterans such as Joe Swanberg (“Alexander the Last”), Andrew Bujalski (“Beeswax”), and Mark and Jay Duplass have all found a decent amount of success and are now working a bit more comfortably — Swanberg’s latest was produced by Noah Baumbach and Bujalski’s working on a studio film based on of the book, “Indecision.”
The Duplass brothers have arguably gotten the best deal so far, working with Hollywood actors such as Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill in their latest picture “Cyrus” and Jason Segal and Ed Helms in the recently wrapped “Jeff Who Lives at Home.” With the seemingly laid back approach of mumblecore filmmaking and their insistence on using non-actors, improvisation and continuing these methods under studio conditions or with established thespians could’ve proved disastrous at any point in production, including pre and post.
However, the results were quite astonishing — “Cyrus,” their first studio effort, has been garnering rave reviews from its successful screenings at Sundance and SXSW. We caught it at SXSW and thought it was “immediately charming and engaging to an almost uncanny level” and that “it’s seriously a hit waiting to happen.” The film stars John C. Reilly as a near bottomed-out failure; a schlubby dude coming off a divorce who lucks into a relationship with the seemingly perfect and idealized Marisa Tomei. This near-perfect relationship skids to a halt when Reilly meets her son, Cyrus, played by Jonah Hill. Suddenly, Reilly finds himself in a war for Tomei’s affection, with Hill’s character going at amusing, sad, and creepy lengths to keep his Mother all to himself. “I approached Marisa as my wife, basically… I don’t even know if [my character] knows anyone else besides his Mom. He can’t relate to people his own age, he’s really highly intelligent but you realize at the core he’s just a scared little kid,” Hill said in an interview with The Playlist (which also included conversations with Tomei, Reilly and The Duplass brothers).
Also, the filmmaking process that worked so well for the Duplass brothers — such as loose blocking, improvising and screenwriting in the editing room —not only were embraced by the cast and studio, but were actually preferred.
By merely guiding the actors and taking away the stress of remembering particular lines and marks to hit, the characters reacted more organically and played off each other to create more realistic scenes.
“The story literally builds on itself,” Reilly remarked. Instead of having to make these arbitrary decisions ahead of time and shooting the end of the movie first or messing up the order, you can really find an organic way through the story and the characters build and get to know each other… I think it makes for a really original sounding movie and a really emotionally true movie.”
Tomei wasn’t even very familiar with mumblecore — she had only seen “The Puffy Chair, and was simply enticed by the style of working. “They said right out front that there would be days where we’d break apart a scene and we’re not gonna know how to put it back together! We’ll all figure that out together… it feels more like a collective,” she said. Mark gives some more insight on the process, saying “We write a script we create a structure, and then when we get on set we’re trying to cull something magical and something really special that happens. We’re kinda waiting for this special thing to happen… it doesn’t work from an intellectual stand point as much as it works from a perspective of creating an environment where something great can happen and becoming emotional about that happenstance.”
“They were so innovative, they gave me more freedom than I even wanted some days,” Reilly mused. The film perfectly balances many different tones, which Reilly mentions was not deliberate. “It just is what it is. We just went in there, tried to be honest, tried to stay in the moment, and as a result we kept with an emotionally sad, funny, vulnerable kinda movie, because that’s just where we were at when we were making it.”
Tomei also notes that the brothers shot the film in sequential order. This approach to a shoot is usually avoided due to the ease it is to shoot all scenes in their locations before wrapping, but by filming this way it is easier for both the director and actors flow consistently and naturally build the characters. This is especially beneficial when you’re building a film through improv, and it only seems natural to the filmmakers. “It’s something we’ve always done, and it’s just critical to our improvisational process and you know, getting really truthful performances through and through,” Mark said.
Although this is obviously new territory for Hill — he’s strictly been in comedies before this film — Reilly and Tomei have also been tapped to play roles different from their norm, with Reilly being particularly reserved and Tomei playing a mother character, something she was excited for. “Marisa hadn’t really played a mom yet… a lot of women are afraid to play a mother for the first time in Hollywood. It’s just a reality. Particularly a mother to a 21 year old. She was immediately like, ‘No I wanna do that. That’s gonna show my depth. That’s gonna give me a chance for me to do something that people didn’t see for me.’ “
On mumblecore, Mark mentions, “For the press to be writing about all these $10,000 movies in 2005 was a beautiful thing for us… it was also a little exclusionary, like ‘Well if I don’t understand what this word is, maybe I won’t like these movies.’ For us we feel like, ‘Cyrus’ is not just for that intellectual elite who know what that term is. The form of this movie is an unconventional love triangle movie… we want to invite everyone into this movie, so we would hate for it to be limited by that term.” The Duplass brothers seemed to enjoy the bigger fish they’re frying but they haven’t counted out returning to their roots Jay Duplass said remarking on their Gramercy hotel surroundings at the press junket.
“What they spent at this hotel today, Mark and I could make a movie… we’re grass is greener type people… it’s very probable ‘Man we wanna get our indie roots back,’ then we go do that and we’re like ‘I’m sick of cooking for everyone and hanging lights. Let’s go get craft services and trailers,’ y’know? Keep going back and forth. Certain stories that we tell that require unknowns, like ‘Baghead’ was about unknown actors, it would’ve been weird if it had famous people in it.”
“Cyrus” opens this Friday June 18 via Fox Searchlight in limited release (New York and Los Angeles only). For more of the rollout schedule and to find out when it’s in your city, click here.