Director: Zackary Adler
Writer: Reed Fish
Cinematographer: Doug Chamberlain
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Alexis Bledel, Schuyler Fisk, Chris Parnell, Katey Sagal
Running Time: 93 min

Charlottesville’s own Schuyler Fisk, daughter of director Jack Fisk and actor Sissy Spacek, brings her wealth of talent to this quirky coming-of-age story, providing both a strong performance and original music.

Every Screenwriting 101 class informs you that a good script introduces a common man who experiences the most unusual day of his life and emerges transformed. But Reed Fish is no ordinary guy; in fact, he may be the most important and popular person in his little town of Mud Meadows. He has inherited both a radio and a TV show from his departed father, and the residents of his small town rely on him for weather and traffic reports, news, and gossip about their area. Reed is also engaged to the town beauty and is just weeks away from his marriage. Everybody in town knows him, and they all have an opinion about his life.

Into his perfect world comes an old paramour (Schuyler Fisk, eerily channelling her mother), home from college and suddenly looking very appealing. As Fish begins to question the direction his life is taking, another twist is exposed: the camera pulls back to reveal that the story we are watching is actually a film-within-the film, and all the characters we have seen are actually actors portraying themselves in his life story. As the film progresses, the characters flit into and out of their roles as we strain to keep up with whether the people on screen are being themselves or portraying themselves. In fact, there is also a real Reed Fish; he wrote the screenplay and plays the part of Reed’s friend, John. Our state of confusion only helps us to empathize with Fish’s own bewilderment and indecision. For anyone who has ever imagined that their own life is a movie, this may be a familiar sensation.

Within this deliberately disorienting framework, the filmmakers have crafted a whimsical and reverent paean to small town life in the twentieth century, lovingly illuminating those moments when we all learn that life’s journey is not black and white, but grey, funny, sad, and sometimes magical.