99 mins |
Rated
R (for language)
Directed by Jay Duplass
Starring Olivia Luccardi, Michael Strassner, Liz Larsen
On Christmas Eve, Cliff, a newly sober improv comedian, cracks a tooth and lands in the emergency care of Didi, an older no-nonsense dentist. What begins as a routine check-up sparks an unpredictable evening of misadventures. Together, Cliff and Didi fight to overcome being shut out by their families, face their biggest fears, and discover their own surprising and tender connection.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The childhood dream was to become some version of the Coen Brothers, a sibling filmmaking team with my brother Mark. That dream came true from 2003 until 2011 when Mark and I co-wrote and co-directed four shorts and five feature films that were about a tenth as successful as the least successful Coen Brothers film. But we were living our dream and getting paid (mostly). Then career stuff happened and brotherly stuff happened (see our book Like Brothers), and being the Coen Brothers 2.0 no longer made sense.
In the decade following, I didn’t think I could make a film without Mark, so I became an actor, directed some cool TV, and produced alongside Mark and Mel Eslyn and our Duplass Brothers Productions team. But I freaked out when I turned 50 in 2023, realizing I had not made a movie that was mine in over ten years, and that if I didn’t do it soon, the dream of even just making original films was going to die. So I decided that when the strike ended, I was going to shoot a movie come hell or high water.
Because of the challenging filmmaking climate, I knew it needed to be well contained to guarantee that it would actually happen. So I went back to my Puffy Chair roots and found an aspiring actor with a great story that could be a galvanizing force. Enter Michael Strassner. I had recently devoured Strassner’s Instagram, watching him dancing wildly and shirtlessly like a genius lunatic. We struck up a friendship and as I mentored him on his short film, I learned what a filmmaking powerhouse he is. I had also recently seen the stage musical of Transparent and became obsessed with Liz Larsen, who played the character of Shelly Pfefferman. I met with Liz and learned about what she’d been through personally, and that energy dovetailed perfectly into the story Strassner and I wanted to tell.
When the strike ended, we got cracking on the script. My brother and our company gave me all their love and support. And within a month, we were shooting a movie at Christmas-time in Baltimore, freezing our asses off, and having the time of our lives like a bunch of Baltimorons would. It couldn’t feel more heartwarming that I get to premiere The Baltimorons at SXSW, exactly twenty years after my first feature film The Puffy Chair played in the same exact theater in 2005.
—Jay Duplass
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On Christmas Eve, Cliff, a newly sober improv comedian, cracks a tooth and lands in the emergency care of Didi, an older no-nonsense dentist. What begins as a routine check-up sparks an unpredictable evening of misadventures. Together, Cliff and Didi fight to overcome being shut out by their families, face their biggest fears, and discover their own surprising and tender connection.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The childhood dream was to become some version of the Coen Brothers, a sibling filmmaking team with my brother Mark. That dream came true from 2003 until 2011 when Mark and I co-wrote and co-directed four shorts and five feature films that were about a tenth as successful as the least successful Coen Brothers film. But we were living our dream and getting paid (mostly). Then career stuff happened and brotherly stuff happened (see our book Like Brothers), and being the Coen Brothers 2.0 no longer made sense.
In the decade following, I didn’t think I could make a film without Mark, so I became an actor, directed some cool TV, and produced alongside Mark and Mel Eslyn and our Duplass Brothers Productions team. But I freaked out when I turned 50 in 2023, realizing I had not made a movie that was mine in over ten years, and that if I didn’t do it soon, the dream of even just making original films was going to die. So I decided that when the strike ended, I was going to shoot a movie come hell or high water.
Because of the challenging filmmaking climate, I knew it needed to be well contained to guarantee that it would actually happen. So I went back to my Puffy Chair roots and found an aspiring actor with a great story that could be a galvanizing force. Enter Michael Strassner. I had recently devoured Strassner’s Instagram, watching him dancing wildly and shirtlessly like a genius lunatic. We struck up a friendship and as I mentored him on his short film, I learned what a filmmaking powerhouse he is. I had also recently seen the stage musical of Transparent and became obsessed with Liz Larsen, who played the character of Shelly Pfefferman. I met with Liz and learned about what she’d been through personally, and that energy dovetailed perfectly into the story Strassner and I wanted to tell.
When the strike ended, we got cracking on the script. My brother and our company gave me all their love and support. And within a month, we were shooting a movie at Christmas-time in Baltimore, freezing our asses off, and having the time of our lives like a bunch of Baltimorons would. It couldn’t feel more heartwarming that I get to premiere The Baltimorons at SXSW, exactly twenty years after my first feature film The Puffy Chair played in the same exact theater in 2005.
—Jay Duplass
