If you find yourself feeling down on your luck this holiday season, it might be time to ask yourself a simple question. Do you really need all 32 of your teeth? Couldn’t you spare one or two in exchange for a potential lifetime of happiness?
That’s more or less the takeaway from “The Baltimorons,” though Jay Duplass’ bittersweet holiday romance takes a few detours on its way there. Co-writer and star Michael Strassner gives himself a tailor-made breakout role as Cliff, a sad sack Baltimore native who can’t properly celebrate his six month sobriety milestone because he’s mourning an unsuccessful suicide attempt and his depressing (and in all likelihood, depressingly common) improv-comic-to-mortgage-broker career path. His struggles with addiction clearly took a toll on his fiancé Brittany (Olivia Luccardi), and their relationship has evolved into something more resembling a caregiver and patient than a romantic partnership (with all the resentment that accompanies that, of course). And these days, she seems more concerned about him relapsing into comedy than having a drink.
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It doesn’t take long to ascertain that Cliff is going nowhere in a hurry, but sometimes all you need is a lucky break. His comes in the form of a dental emergency when he absentmindedly walks into a doorframe on his way into Christmas Eve dinner with Brittany’s family, knocking a pearly white out of his mouth and sending him straight to the one dentist in town who’s willing to work on a holiday.
Cliff is the one having needles jabbed into his gums, but Didi (Liz Larsen) might be having the worst day of the two people in this particular dental office. Christmas Eve is her favorite day of the year, but she’s just been informed that her adult children won’t be coming over tonight because her ex-husband has decided to throw an impromptu wedding reception after his impromptu courthouse wedding with his second wife. It doesn’t help that her patient initially comes across as the most insufferable Comedy Guy you’ve ever met — nothing he does in the 101 minutes of this film suggests that he’s remotely problematic, but we all know somebody with the exact same vibe who has posted a Notes App apology on his Instagram story — and the laughing gas turns him into even more of an oversharing mess than he already was.
Cliff makes a few ill-timed passes at her under the plausible deniability of painkillers, and Didi would love nothing more than to cut ties after their appointment. But Cliff’s car gets towed, and Brittany doesn’t seem eager to come pick him up, so a combination of Good Samaritan instincts and a desire to avoid her lack of Christmas Eve plans prompts Didi to drive him to the impound lot. Neither one of them is willing to admit that they’re hanging out because they have nowhere else to go, but one errand gives way to a Christmas Eve odyssey that sees them break the law, feel the first sparks of love (or at least attraction), and commit the ultimate sin: performing improv together.
“The Baltimorons” is an Indie Movie with a capital “I,” and would likely have been branded as such even if it was produced by Paramount or Netflix. When you think of indie film as a genre (as opposed to a statement of financial affiliations), this is the kind of movie that comes to mind. It’s the tale of an unremarkable man who, through the power of cinematic storytelling, overcomes a few of his myriad flaws and is humanized in the eyes of audiences en route to a bit of incremental improvement. But Duplass’ first directorial effort without his brother Mark bears the elegant simplicity of a life spent learning how to make good Indie Movies, and its combination of charismatic leads, smooth shot compositions, and timeless Christmas music ensures that you’ll be rooting for its May-December romance to take hold by the time it ends.
December ennui is a universal experience, and this film makes no effort to hide the fact that we’re all destined to suffer from the Holiday Blues at one point or another. Human lives inevitably ebb and flow yet the calendar is consistent, ensuring that a few Decembers will always coincide with a few of our lowest points. But tragedy is often the trailer that plays before opportunity, and “The Baltimorons” makes a solid argument that every one of us is only a dental catastrophe away from turning everything around.
Grade: B
An IFC Films release, “The Baltimorons” opens in New York City on Friday, September 5 before expanding on September 12.
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