To Dream the Impossible Dream, You Need Help
'My Movie Starring Paul Dano' starts awkward but ends lovely and lively.
Dear Moviegoers,
Throughout Joe Bartone's My Movie Starring Paul Dano, the filmmaker character and his scheming "executive producer" constantly try to scrounge up money for their project, Bear Naked Amazonians from Mars. By hook and crook(edness), the feat is accomplished, but not without personal compromise and heartbreak. Bartone's movie, a clever-ish satire on the lowly dreams of Hollywood wannabes, and the friends and films along the way to lessons learned, is light on direct references to past classics, but there was one sly line, very subtle, that hit the bill for me.
A sly line that, in its own way, defined the entire experience.
First, there is Paul Dano. And by "is," I mean "isn't." A dream apparition comes to our main character, a vaping, frosted-tip, lives-out-of-his-car-in-his-ex-girlfriend's-parking-lot kinda guy, that tells him to make a movie and, if he does, actor Paul Dano will show up and make everyone involved a success. Now, it SHOULD be easy to blow off this guy and his grandiose long-shot of a maybe idea about a possible job for his barely hanging-on friends, but they begrudgingly go with it. With friends like these, who needs a cult?
Title cards separate chapters from one another, with short mockumentary (or "mocku") behind-the-scenes talking head interviews skewed throughout, showing just how these hapless personalities fit in with each other, while garage sets and cash grabs happen in the background. My Movie Starring Paul Dano, I admit, felt grating for the first twenty minutes, like one of those independent comedies that thinks it's funnier than people will ever understand. It almost - "almost," mind you - gave me second-hand embarrassment when introduced to its cast of goofs in its literal uphill cycle of characters opening scene.
I'm happy to report - very happy - that it all paid off in spades. My word, everything from the opening to the Dano dreamscape to the jokes to the silly film-within-a-film itself, all threaded together from a loom of cleverness and creativeness. Those first twenty minutes clicked, and everything fell into place, like a Christopher Nolan screenplay.
"Like," of course, but My Movie Starring Paul Dano knows it's not Inception. For this class of filmmaking, Joe Bartone is at the top of the field. His characters grow, his story progresses by trip and trial, and his ending tightly knots a bow around what should become a fine example of indie storytelling.
That line, from the Uncle who just wants to watch Wheel of Fortune, who has the money to bankroll the production, is a fun reference to one of my favorite films of all time, American Movie. Both want booze with soda, and after some sips, say, "it's got a good taste to it." Life is simple in the end, and we all just want some Peppermint Schnapps with our Sprite. Or Vodka with Mountain Dew.
Both Uncles represent their respective movies by appearance and performance alone. They're happy to be around, in their trailers, reading poetry and thinking of Vanna White. When their nephews finally have something to screen to people, there's pride to be had and more to support, before getting back to routine.
It's nice to have friends. To have a cult. To have Uncles. To have people who believe in you and your dumb plans. Because in the end, they weren't dumb. 3.5/5
My Movie Starring Paul Dano is now available to stream on Tubi.