In case you missed it … ‘The Puffy Chair’

Roadside Attractions and Netflix are doing a tremendous job of bringing the very small indie films with disproportionately great stories to DVD, so that the larger audience has greater access. The Puffy Chair is just one of those many little films that have been saved from relative obscurity by Netflix’s commitment to helping promote the indie filmmaker. The film is written and directed by the Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay. Their newest film, Baghead, has been making huge waves with audiences and critics on the festival circuit and they are already in post-production on their next film called The Do-Deca-Pentathlon. I recently watched ‘The Puffy Chair’ to see what the filmmaking siblings have to offer us …

‘The Puffy Chair’ is shot handheld with what seems to be any average digital camcorder. The entire film is played with the feel of the audience actually being there with the three main characters, in the moment, experiencing their journey with them. Josh (Mark Duplass) is a former rock band member who now is a self-employed rock band booking agent. He decides to go on a road trip to pick up his father’s birthday gift … a big, purple puffy LazyBoy chair he bought on eBay that resembles the one his dad had when Josh was a kid. After a near catastrophic breach of etiquette with his girlfriend Emily (Kathryn Aselton), he decides to make up by inviting her along on his road trip. The happy couple sets out in their “over-sized” van, but make a stop at Josh’s brother’s place to visit on the way. This results in his brother Rhett inviting himself along, because he feels the only acceptable gift for dad would be to “reconnect” with him in person. Josh and Emily has hoped for this trip to be a chance for quality time together, but now they have to make room for a third wheel.

The shakiness of the camera, the unexpected zooms and focus corrections … all of this is stylistically intentional, adding to the often uneasy moments present in the story. Josh has a habit of being a little cheap and goes to some lengths to creatively accommodate his frugal tendencies. These scenes have that wonderfully painful quality of being both embarrassing and comical, much like the Larry David sitcom ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. Josh clearly has some issues with respect and consideration for others as he fails on repeated occasions to pick up on Emily’s signals. Anyone who refers to his girlfriend as “dude” as much as Josh does is obviously lacking certain necessary elements required for maintaining a healthy relationship. The turning point in Josh and Emily’s relationship is when Rhett finds his “true love” in a small town movie theater, leading to some of the best stuff this movie has to offer. The story is all about Josh and Emily’s relationship, its ups and downs and there are plenty, and then ultimately a decision that has to be made.

‘The Puffy Chair’ wins on plenty of its own merit, but also benefits from a really great indie rock soundtrack as well, including tracks from Death Cab for Cutie, Spoon, Saturday Looks Good to Me, Of Montreal and Decibully. The film further goes to illustrate my philosophy on film, that the only thing that truly matters is having a good story … if that one crucial element is in place, then production quality takes a significant backseat in determining the worthiness of a film. With so much Hollywood appeal being pushed in our faces on a regular basis, its good to know that audiences are still willing to venture outside of the box and appreciate independent film of all kinds.