If you’re looking for something different than your garden variety mainstream comedies, I give you Kabluey. The very title of this movie hints that you’re about to witness a very cute and charming movie. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and exactly because of this it maintains a very casual atmosphere. However, it’s still engaging enough to not make reach for your phone during eighty-minute runtime. Granted, the pacing is a bit slower but that only punctuates the lovable outcast loser vibe they’ve got going on here.
I usually find similar indie productions too overbearing and ultimately boring. They’re more about the people who made the movie, not offering a cohesive cinematic experience. Kabluey is not that type of movie although it easily could have been. It carefully balances drama and humor, all the while maintaining characters in the focus. This is because Scott Prendergast who wrote, directed, and starred in this movie wrote an amazing script with a lot of attention to detail. You can feel that writing from the heart when you smile or ponder these strange but real events.
Salman is a very clumsy guy, he can’t hold a job and afford rent. But when he comes to help his sister-in-law whose husband is away in the army he will have to deal with his problems, which now include her demonic children that will raise hell wherever they are. But the main thing is that he will get a job in his sister-in-law’s company giving out flyers in his blue suit.
As the title suggests, the suit is crucial to the story. And I couldn’t help laughing every time I saw it. Since this is a dramedy, you’ll have your usual mix of colorful characters and surreal events. The whole thing reminds me of another movie, The Bottle Rocket. The acting was great and it was refreshing to see Lisa Kudrow somewhere else than in Friends. Christine Taylor and our main man, Scott were also quite good but I just loved Conchata Ferrell here. The main story seems like your usual loser tale but if you dig just a little bit deeper you’ll find that it most certainly not. You have the whole military thing going on along with the lives of people working low-income jobs.
Director: Scott Prendergast
Writer: Scott Prendergast
Cast: Lisa Kudrow, Scott Prendergast, Christine Taylor, Conchata Ferrell, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Fun Stuff: Characters “Cameron” and “Lincoln” are based on the Director’s real life nephews Wilson and Logan. The real boys appear alongside the child actors portraying them in the large birthday party scene.
Rating:
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816545/
