100 Words On ... Mutual Appreciation

Uneven lighting and musical performances recorded on what sound like on-camera mikes bolster the sense of scrappy DIY creativity in early 21st-century Brooklyn that is the subject of Mutual Appreciation, a low-budget indie about the kinds of people who might make a low-budget indie. A cast gifted at offhand delivery and squirmingly funny body language brings writer-director-editor-costar Andrew Bujalski’s smart script vividly to life. Good with women, as always, Bujalski puts his most insightful and forthright character Ellie (Rachel Clift), the center of a tentative romantic triangle, at the center of the movie as well. The dialogue sounds improvised, thanks to Bujalski’s deftness at capturing that millennial way of talking that manages to be both self-effacingly diffident and disarmingly direct. Written for The L Magazine