Bellflower

Bellflower, a film from 2011, is a real indie. For example, the gaffer is one of the producers. Although this film has a "let's put on a show" vibe, it's very accomplished for a debut film, written, directed, and starring Evan Glodell. It's fresh, original, unpredictable, but as one might expect in a debut film, it's also over-directed.

The setting is the seedy suburb of Los Angeles that gives the film its title. Woodrow (Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) are childhood friends from Wisconsin that have moved to California. Like all the characters in the film, I have no idea if they had jobs, or were simply slackers. They live in homes and go out drinking and work diligently on building a flamethrower, so they must have some income.

The flamethrower idea comes from their shared obsession with the film Mad Max. They want to be ready for the apocalypse, and after building the flamethrower they want to customize a muscle car to have true post-apocalyptic awesomeness.

Woodrow is shy, Aiden is outgoing, so when the former meets a girl at a local bar during a cricket-eating contest, he shyly asks her out. She's Milly, who's kind of a mystery girl in this film. Played well by Jessie Wiseman, I never quite got a true picture of her. She lives with another guy (Vincent Grashaw, another producer), but their relationship is never spelled out.

Woodrow and Milly go on an epic first date--they drive all the way to Texas and back. But Milly tells him she will break his heart, and when things go wrong, they really go wrong. Milly's best friend Courtney (Rebekah Brandes) is involved, and when we find out she carries a gun in her purse, Chekhov's rule is invoked. Chekhov, as far as a I know, had no rule about flamethrowers.

Glodell's script is fine, capturing a kind of lifestyle that is certainly alien to me but seems authentic. He works too hard with film school razzle-dazzle that at times overwhelms his script; the ending is especially obtuse. But I really bought how the characters react to each other and though some of the actions are over the top in terms of normal human behavior, it seemed real.

The relationship between Glodell and Dawson is especially good--the connection with youth and a home far away, and a shared world that is part movie fantasy and part reaction to the humdrum nature of their lives. Again, it would have been far more realistic had we known what kind of jobs they had--in a film like this I always wonder how people pay for their booze and drugs.

But Bellflower is a striking debut, and I look forward to more films by Glodell.