Mumblecore

Are you an avid fan of independent cinema? I know I am, and the last couple of years I have stumbled upon a fresh new subgenre of indie film called mumblecore. Mumblecore attempts to capture the nonlinear and lukewarm nature of day to day life. What’s refreshing in these films is that you don’t know what’s going to happen, these films slowly unravel with seemingly no grandiose resolution. Some things are resolved while others are simply left open ended. To me it just feels like you are peeking into the lives of other people who are just like you facing life’s subtle ebbs and flows as they come along. Andrew Bujalski pioneered this take on cinema in the early 2000’s with his pleasant debut film Funny Haha. Andrew used no name regular people and a shitty camera to capture a vulnerable character navigating through everyday social dilemmas and life’s ambiguous cloud of direction. His sophomore film Mutual Appreciation follows a wannabe musician who likes his best friends girlfriend and doesn’t do anything about it. It’s just entirely relatable how these characters stumble and walk through complex emotions while going through mundane social environments. Now I get that this is not everybody’s cup of tee, but I appreciate this deeply human artistic approach.

The Duplass brothers, Joe Swanberg, and Greta Gerwig joined in the movement with The Puffy Chair and Hannah Takes the Stairs. As more mumblecore films were made it’s influence in main stream Hollywood grew as well. Stars joined in the action as they liked this form of honest storytelling; Mark and Jay Duplass made Jeff Who Lives at Home with Jason Segel and Ed Helms; while Joe Swanberg made Drinking Buddies with Anna Kendrick, Jake Johnson, and Olivia Wilde; and Bujalski himself made Results with Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce. The rise of mumblecore has brought about a new generation of complex and deeply human filmmakers culminating in recent classics such as Lady Bird and Little Women from Director Greta Gerwig.