The Puffy Chair (2005)
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Feature: B-
Josh
(Mark Duplass) is a man at a crossroads of sorts. His retro-counterculture brother (Rhett
Wilkins) is too emotional for his own good and the relationship with his girlfriend
Emily (Kathryn Aselton) seems good until they decide to take a road trip and
the brother tags along in The Duplass Brothers’ surprisingly good drama/comedy The Puffy Chair (2005).
It is the
title object that Josh intends to take to their father, but it is getting it
and keeping track of it while new situations and debate arise. Now in the usual bad Hollywood road movie, if
they have not plastered a stupid, dysfunctional family in the middle of things
like they usually do, but here we get a tale with limited predictability and
real character development. Even when
you might want to know more or there is a slight wrong move, the story quickly
recovers as it moves on.
So why
does it work? Let’s see. No pretension. No stupid jokes. No insulting the audience. No major clichés. Some subtly bold behavior on the part of the
actors. The makers take heir time with
the actors, who take their time with the roles.
No bad pop culture references. In
others words, a comedy that takes its audience and characters seriously enough
to work. Though a little rough, The Puffy Chair is better than dozens
of features we have suffered through in the same vein and that is not easy.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image was shot on digital video and shows it
throughout. Our guess is DV of some
sort, but I give them credit for making it look as good as it does. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is just fine for
a basic low-budget recording. Extras are
mixed, including interesting outtakes, deleted scenes, a somewhat good audio
commentary and skits, short films and mini featurette pieces with The Duplass
Brothers. Hope they are on to something.
- Nicholas Sheffo
