LOL (2006)--2/5

Joe Swanberg has managed to eke a career in the margins of the so-called “mumblecore” film movement. His films, along with those of Andrew Bujalski (“Mutual Appreciation”) and the Duplass brothers (“The Puffy Chair”), are defined by their ultra-low budgets, improvised dialogue, and mundane situations. They’re almost all the same. Once in a while, a thoughtful insight peeks through the awkward action and dialogue. Mostly, they’re exercises in urban navel-gazing and narcissism—entitled white kids rebelling by lazing around shitty, overpriced apartments.

The films can be effective time capsules of this phenomenon. Since the point is quickly grasped, the first film in this genre viewed by anyone—“Mutual Appreciation” for me—will probably be the best.

One more thing: The characters in “mumblecore” films all date women way out of their league—cast, no doubt, because they’re unobtainable to the filmmakers. The excitement of being in a Real Movie legitimizes the gratuitous, “naturalistic” sex scenes prevalent throughout. It’s all kind of smarmy, to say the least.


The same actors playing the same characters in Swanberg’s “LOL” are used to lazily show the effects of technology on the male libido. Swanberg plays a jerk in love with his PowerBook. He chats with friends sitting next to him and looks to the computer’s screen while making out with his girlfriend. Kevin Bewersdorf plays a jerkier jerk who makes music out of invented instruments and found sounds. He lies to an interested girl about a tour he’s going on just to get a ride to St. Louis. In reality, he may or may not be meeting up with an Internet porn crush he’s been emailing. Yeah. The plotlines are all left open. These losers will continue to shuffle—and mumble!—through every opportunity given to them.

More fascinating than any ostensible plot in “LOL” is the music made by Bewersdorf. In a sparsely-attended living room show, he creates a thrilling cacophony with voice loops, percussive slaps of the microphone, and a keyboard. Since we see him performing, character and actor are the same here. During the film, he asks the people he meets to make sounds—any sounds—on camera. From these collected voices, he composes inventive music and video collages used as scene breaks. Where’s the documentary on this guy?