Shithouse - 2020
This review may contain spoilers.
Here is a sentence that I never expected to utter: Shithouse is the most emotionally raw, gut wrenchingly honest film I've seen all year. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the word "shit" with a product I deem to be so sweepingly artistic that really hit me so hard. In any case, the assertion is entirely true. And it is in examining this coalescence of opposites that the real genius of the film emerges.
The film starts off commonly enough. A freshman in college banters with his sort of stoner, sort of enlightened, mostly head-up-his-ass roommate about hitting the coolest party that night. It turns out the frat "Shithouse" has the best one going. The two resolve to attend, but not before Alex (played by writer, director Cooper Raiff) has an extended excursus with his stuffed animal in bed. This is the first inkling that something may be different here.
The party mostly goes as you'd expect, before a twist in the action. When a drunk girl throws herself at Alex, he excuses himself from the room under the auspices of searching for a bag he may have left outside. Once in the open air, instead of returning, Alex begins to look at pictures and videos of his mother and sister back home. He then breaks down in a heaving fit of weeping. At this moment, I knew this film was going somewhere completely different.
We learn Alex was raised in an extremely tight-knit family, a group that had lost a loved one unexpectedly. As the film so honestly displays, he was having a nightmare of a time growing accustomed to college life. In tapping in to this experience of homesickness and loss of familiarity, Raiff exposes an underbelly of golden storytelling so uncommonly mined in these college-type coming of age pictures. In fact, he at first seems like a "baby." But we grow to learn that his experience is far more prevalent than many would like to say.
After he pulls himself together enough to head back to the dorm, he runs into his RA Maggie, having just returned from discarding a deceased pet turtle. Maggie is lonely, a little drunk, and just looking for a companion. Alex is all too happy to oblige. What begins as an awkward sexual encounter (again, entirely relatable, even if cringe-inducing), begins to bloom into much more. The two spend their time walking and talking through the wee hours of the night. They hit on big themes like family and upbringing, the selfish nature of the pursuit of maturity in college, and the unique pain each has experienced. The film has touches of Garden State in these moments, or even indie gems like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, but it is also wholly its own.
Still, every night must end and Alex is surprised to find the next morning that Maggie is cold-shouldering him decisively. This launches him on a journey of self-discovery, moving from the near universal experience of coming out of our shell to the terror of honestly opening ourselves to new friendships. The film even explores the dynamics of relationships, and the realization that growth in a new place sometimes takes letting go of strings tying us to our pasts.
It's hard to do this film full justice in a review. The movie was written and directed by a 22 year old who started working on the project as a sophomore in college. It starred about 12 actors and almost no crew, and it was born of a Youtube video posted by Raiff in which he bet Jay Duplass that he would not watch the video and email him about it. Knowing a thing or two about mumblecore, perhaps Duplass felt a kinship to Raiff's work. In any case, Raiff lost that bet but decidedly won in the end - Shithouse was born. What a remarkable origin story. But the writing is even better. It's mostly two people just gabbing about nothing while they wile away the time. But in its ordinariness, it becomes something very special. Each character's arcs begin to shift and change, in a very real, grounded way. Two scenes are deserving of final mention. The first is one of those RDT's (relationship defining talks) which are common in these films, but here it is just achingly earnest. The words are so damaging and cutting, but also arising from real passion and care. Once again, high and low meeting to create masterful art. This is the drum I've been banging on for 8 paragraphs.
The final scene I love is much like it: Alex's last call to his mom and sister. A declaration of love and an honest examination of where adulthood is heading. What growth really takes. What investment and potential look like when they're aimed at realization. But, in the moment, such heartfelt emotion and honesty. I wasn't crying. You were crying.
By the end, we discover Cooper Raiff is nerdy and funny and so humbly outcast that he is infinitely winning. By turns, Dylan Gelula (I cannot BELIEVE it took me this long to even mention her!) is sharp, incisive, a tad damaged, and more than a little snarky. She always wears her heart (and her pain) right on her sleeve. Her emotionally honest performance is actually my favorite of the picture. I guess what I'm finally saying is, if you're looking for some I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell-style bacchanal antics, some fleshy, druggy revelry, then keep on scrolling. But if instead, you want to discover the hidden treasures of perhaps the best small indie picture of the year, look no further. SXSW deemed it the best narrative feature. That's a title with which I can definitely get on board.
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