Uncle Kent is no place to begin if you aren't used to indie films. On the face of it, it is almost a parody of what to expect at Sundance: a small group of unknown actors seemingly ad-libbing on cheap video with flat lighting, no music on the score except a cheap Casio keyboard groove. The story takes place over a weekend and looks very much as if it were shot in a weekend.
In that time period you'll meet Kent, a 40 year old working cartoonist who spends his nights alone, getting high and putzing around on Chatroulette. During the course of the film, he hosts a houseguest, a woman he met there, who has "a meeting" in town. She has a boyfriend, but is a flirt. Over the course of the weekend, she and Kent will go on Chatroulette together, go to a party, talk about masturbating, go on Craigslist, meet up with an online chick in the hopes of having a threesome and then conclude their weekend with a grand "whatever."
When Uncle Kent's short running time was over, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of the screening room. I was even heard to say something obnoxious like, "John Cassavetes wouldn't have made a movie like that!" However, I can't lie: somehow, somewhere, Swanberg and his team smuggled an essence of something pure in their dilettantish play. It has stuck with me, and stuck with me more than the thematically identical, though much bigger budget film Greenberg. (Yes, Uncle Kent is a movie that makes the low-budget Greenberg look like a Cecil B. DeMille production.)
Most props go to the Jennifer Prediger who plays the female lead, Kate. Prediger presents Kate as just sexy enough to be infuriating; it's a marvelous performance and, with luck, we'll see her in more films. We're so used to quirky, nutty girls objectified by the camera, with whom it is impossible not to fall in love. Kate is, put bluntly, a nightmare. She is precisely the reason I'm glad I'm not dating anymore. She's immature, completely unpredictable and, just when you are sure that you are at least going to score after putting up with all her squawk: no entry.
Forgive me for being so coarse, but this is the unspoken subtext of the film. There are an awful lot of sex organs in this unrated film, but all of them for display purposes only.
So I say give Uncle Kent a try. Just keep your expectations. . .minimal. If you come in midway you'll think you stumbled upon some unedited webcam feed, but this is, I suppose, the new aesthetic of the avant-garde. Gone is Cassavetes' grainy 16mm. Long live the Flip.
(Note: as I mention above, Uncle Kent grew on me - so this is one of those examples where the InstaReview is actually NOT a fair indicator of how I ultimately feel about a film. It happens. For curiosity's sake, though, let's take a look.)
