Suddenly

Suddenly
Rated: NOT RATED
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Critics have compared Diego Lerman’s Suddenly to the work of Jim Jarmusch, and like Stranger Than Paradise, it’s a road movie involving a distant relative. It’s also shot in grainy black-and-white and is so funny you forget to laugh. The humor here is dry as a desert, and the spartan plot is a mostly uninvolving chain of nonevents that somehow peters out in a poignant conclusion. Insecure and obese lingerie salesman Marcia, a character seemingly plucked from Todd Solondz’ cruel cerebrum, is suddenly (hence the title) propositioned on the street by a pair of knife-wielding lesbians who say they aren’t lesbians and who go by the names Mao and Lenin. (Aside from a throwaway line about the exploitation of workers, the socialist undercurrent ends there.) The exciting girls kidnap Marcia from her banal life, drive a stolen cab until it runs out of gas, then hitch their way to an aunt’s house for a day or two of sex, jokes and ice cream. The First Run transfer captures the lo-fi grain of Lerman’s minimalist camerawork, but the sloppy subtitles have a fair amount of spelling mistakes.

This article appears in May 23-29, 2007.