Mutual Appreciation (2005)

Please don't spend money on this.

Let's be realistic.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Bring a pillow, a receptacle for excrement so you needn't stir, sign your will, and take your nemesis on a dream date.Under acted, entirely improvised on the fly dialog. and mise-en-scene that leaves the camera unattended explores the boring spontaneous utterances of undergrads trying to make a really deep art film by saying a lot of "Like" and "So I go..." or "So I''m like..." . If they'd been black the most common utterance would've been repetitive "y'know what I'm saying ?"Oh... and it's poorly filmed ...B&W.Sound guys did workmanlike work. I hate this pretentious crap and was pleased I could turn it off. If at a cinema I would've assaulted a crippled ticket kiosk on my way out after 30'.

At times, this picture feels like a slimmed down Jean Eustache film or an extremely modest variation of Francois Truffaut's ''Jules et Jim." You're forced to wonder what more money or a bigger vision might have produced. While it's true that the characters here have slim ambitions, you consequently have to wonder -- even while remaining devoted to his uncannily subtle skill with character -- what else Bujalski has up his sleeve. A panning shot, perhaps? ''Mutual Appreciation" is his first New York film (''Funny Ha Ha" was set in Allston), and the world he's captured is true to Alan's hipster dreams and indie-rock goals. The character's emotional dial is set on ''emo," which means he lacks the social constitution to articulate himself. He's passive, aimless, and occasionally narcissistic. See Alan unhook himself from Sara (Seung-Min Lee), a cute radio DJ, without it costing him her brother, who's his temporary drummer. And watch as he carries on a flirtation with Ellie, who's also attracted to him. Her emotional intelligence, however, is superior. The women in ''Mutual Appreciation" are confident and direct. The men can be exasperatingly meek.''Funny Ha Ha" was about a stalled 20-something and her romantic entanglements. (The woman who played her, Kate Dollenmayer, has a too-small part here.) ''Mutual Appreciation" is the second chapter in what seems like Bujalski's statement about people trying to find the right words as they move toward adulthood and negotiating their fears of commitment of any kind -- to a job, a person, or a complete thought. He could have called this movie ''A Tentative Yes." Of course, that title should do nothing to stop you from making an absolute commitment to see this film.Wesley Morris

This film is total zero (nula, nada...): no story, no (sensible) dialogs (concentrate on dialogs just for a try!), no acting (just ever smiling Alan), no action, no nothing... Some directors can tell an interesting story in the usual 90 minutes, while Andrew Bujalski spends 110 minutes to tell you ... nothing. The film looks as if it was made by a group of high school students after they had got their first movie camera. Get a group of students and let them make shots of their ordinary life – and I am sure that such a film would be better than Mutual Appreciation.Maybe some people like such films – but then these films should be described and labeled as such - this film is NOT a comedy - this film is boredom (or should we call it "boredy"?), so that those who don't like it can avoid it on time. And before declaring this film a masterpiece, let me remind you on the Andersen's story about the emperor's new clothes.I don't like Hollywood's unreal, highly sophisticated, artificial films full of action, shooting, special effects, etc. I see that this film has gone into the totally opposite direction (maybe even as a protest against Hollywood junk) – but it went too far; I suppose the state somewhere in the middle would be just right.In short: unless you are doing a survey on the most boring films - avoid Mutual Appreciation.

I saw this film yesterday at the Independent Film Festival of Boston and was pleasantly surprised. I just randomly picked it because i wanted to see something at the IFFB, and i loved the movie. Andrew Bujalski did a great job writing this conversion driven movie. The conversation felt so natural that I thought most of it was ad-libbed, but after the film he told us that while parts of the script were somewhat left open for ad-libbing, it was mostly written dialog. The main character, Alan (Justin Rice) has this wonderfully unique charisma, which really pulled me into the movie. Mr. Bujalski told us that much of that character was based on real life Justin Rice, and it came across well. I would definitely recommend checking out this movie if you can, especially for fans of Woody Allen, and it reminded me of Wes Anderson's work in some ways, probably just because of the characters.