Karina on SpoutBlog

Under discussion:

My Effortless Brilliance  (2008)

Lynn Shelton’s My Effortless Brilliance plays something like an overtly comic remake of Old Joy, with mountains swapped out for woods, and a third man wild card pushing the narrative along. It’s not quite like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but it’s a nicely rendered, novella-esque character study with some impressive naturalistic performances.

Sean Nelson plays Erik, an exceedingly shlubby, thirty-something author trying to match the unexpected success of his first book with his third. Terribly insecure, he turns every interpersonal reaction into a grand performance with him as the star. When asked if he’s hungry, he answers, “Yes. I am INCREDIBLY hungry!” He seems right away to be faking it like he’s still making it, and eventually we get confirmation that success was something that came and went very quickly for him, a moment he was unable to grasp and fully enjoy before it floated away. Years after his fifteen minutes, he spins party stories out his failure to assimilate into the world of fame: “I got to be at the table with Liv Tyler, but I only got to talk to her ass.”

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Before Saturday’s screening of his incredible Mister Lonely at the Alamo Ritz here in Austin, director/notorious bullshit artist Harmony Korine took the stage and, wired mic in hand, paced back and forth whilst grasping for the appropriate words to mark the occasion. “I’m not used to theaters where people eat like this,” he began. “I saw somebody back there choke on a nacho.” Pause for effect. “I got excited.”

Korine then launched into a story about the last time he was in Austin, which, he claimed, was at age 16, when he was picked up on a hitchhiking road trip by a guy who drove whilst eating raw sticks of butter. Long before Korine got to the punchline, the guy sitting next to me, who earlier said he was friends with the filmmaker, started laughing. He leaned over and whispered, “None of this is true.” Not that it matters––it was the best stand-up comedy I’ve seen in a while.

More on Mister Lonely soon.