Sundance 2011 Review: Uncle Kent

Mumblecore filmmaker Joe Swanberg returns to Sundance with his latest feature, Uncle Kent

The most enterprising filmmaker of mumblecore, Joe Swanberg, returns to Sundance with his latest entry Uncle Kent. To be honest, while I value mumblecore as a genuine, honest expression of life in the early 21st century amongst young people, Swanberg often exemplifies much of what bothers me about it. His studies of hipster ennui and nerdy sexual expression have always been a mixture of hot and cold for me personally. While I enjoy Hannah Takes The Stairs, much of his other work smacks more of personal branding than personal exploration.Be that as it may though, Uncle Kent is promising in that it shows the director stretching out thematically if not aesthetically.

It stars Kent Osborne as, well, Kent, a forty-year old, single, children’s show writer living in Los Angeles with his cat. A gifted cartoonist and decent guy, Kent spends his days working on new episodes with his hyperactive friend and show composer Kevin. At night, he pets his cat and connects with others online via Chat Roulette, maintaining fairly close relationships at a far distance. This dynamic changes abruptly though when Kate (Jennifer Prediger), one of his close, online buddies comes to stay with him for a week-long conference in LA she’s attending. The connection between the two quirky souls is instant, but Kate has a boyfriend back home she is intent on staying faithful too no matter what. This doesn’t mean though that the pair keeps matters strictly platonic.

Instead, late night confessions over masturbation techniques and physical playfulness belie the attraction they obviously have for one another. Kate decides though that perhaps the best way to alleviate this condition is to bring someone else into the mix. Cue Craigslist and the most awkward threesome scene in quite some time. Both erotic and disappointing, their encounter with a cute, college age girl leads to nothing more than some very heavy petting, making out, and semi-nudity. It is sequences like this and other hot and heavy, hipster sex scenes that populate Swanberg’s filmography that honestly makes me wish he’d drop the arthouse pretense and direct porn already. I mean with projects like the relationship and sex-based web series Young American Bodies, Alexander The Last, and other such projects providing excuses for people in glasses to have hot but awkward sex and getting Greta Gerwig naked, Joe might as well turn into the skid and finally indulge what he teases all the time.

At this point, I’d rather see him drop the overdrawn out dialogue, static camera shots, and shoot Greta Gerwig and Amy Seimetz in a nasty, hardcore girl-girl scene with him in the middle, mixing it up, using all manner of toys, and getting all the dirty close-ups you know he wants but won’t allow himself now. Anyway, back to Kent and Kate. Suffice it to say, their pseudo-cure does not work out as planned leading to even more aggravation. Coming in at a brisk 72 minutes, Uncle Kent stretches out this length with very static, plain compositions and Flip cam footage which feels lazy rather than verite.

Credit should go to Osborne though for his portrayal of a man beginning to enter middle age yet unwilling to give up his frat boy ways and become responsible. His yearning for connection is stunted by fear; while he is perfectly comfortable with Kate online when faced with her in person his desires and anxiety to act on them override their friendship. Osborne, a screenwriter normally and Swanberg collaborator, plays the man’s affable nature and passive aggressive annoyance at Kate carefully. He is not a bad man but refuses to accept circumstances for what they are. Swanberg himself appears on-screen as a successful filmmaker friend helping counsel Kent’s dilemma; personally I find Joe more intriguing as a performer than director, there’s something in that boyish but creepy smile that suggests something sinister at times. While he may not appreciate the comparison personally, Joe Swanberg could have one great serial killer performance in him with that date rapist-smile of his.

In the end, all jabs aside, Uncle Kent does show a progression in Swanberg’s thematic interests. Rather than focusing on boring, twenty-something hipsters trying to figure out their lives while having sex, he has moved onto middle-aged hipsters clinging onto their twenty-something ways while trying to have sex. It’s a small step but I’ll take it nonetheless and for Swanberg fans it’s certainly recommendation. For anyone else, it’s only about an hour long so give it a shot since you’ll still have time to enjoy your evening.

To learn more about this film and where to view it, go to www.sundanceselects.com