Mumblecore on the Croisette: Humpday and Go Get Some Rosemary

This year’s Cannes sidebar section Director’s Fortnight will be home to a pair of mumblecore offerings: one which we are already familiar with in Lynn Shelton‘s Humpday who was highly praised at Sundance – the crowd with which I caught the comedy with were rolling all over themselves (the film’s first 30-40 minutes is extremely well written) and the other, is the world premiere from the Safdie brothers’ Josh and Benny who closed the same section last year (with The Pleasure Of Being Robbed) and who quickly whipped up a new project with financing from France and the States. Mumblecore is far from losing its freshness – I have a feeling that it is here to stay especially when fests like Berlin and Cannes include them within their line-ups.  

Berlin-based Films Boutique has just picked up the sales right to Go Get Some Rosemary which features Frownland director Ronnie Bronstein in the lead role, features a special appearance from an American director who the French adore in Abel Ferrara.

The synopsis for the GGSR sees Bronstein as an alone, sad, busy, sidetracked, free, lofty, late and away from his kids, Lenny, 34 with graying frazzled hair, picks his kids up from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7 (note: the father in real life to these boys is Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth). Lenny juggles his kids and everything else all within a midtown studio apartment in New York City. He ultimately faces the choice of being their father or their friend all with the idea that these two weeks must last 6 months. In these two weeks, a trip upstate, visitors from strange lands, a mother, a girlfriend, “magic” blankets, and complete lawlessness seem to take over their lives. The film is a swan song to excuses and responsibilities; to fatherhood and self-created experiences, and to what it’s like to be truly torn between being a child and being an adult.