English Movie 2009 Harmony And Me
Cast And Crew
Cast
Justin Rice ... Harmony
Kevin Corrigan ... Carlos
Pat Healy ... Matt
Kristen Tucker ... Jessica
Director:Bob Byington
Writer:Bob Byington (screenplay)
Genre:Comedy
Theatrical Release 9/18/2009
Reviews
Sad-faced, Harmony, is a prototype nightmare dumpee - the sort of heartbroken friend you take out for consolatory drinks two or three times before resorting to any excuse to avoid hearing, yet again, the play-by-play rehash of what went wrong. In the wake of his separation from his perky dream-girl Jessica, Harmony's friends and family are as unsympathetic as only true intimates can be. His appalling brothers mock his anguished state, and his buddies counsel stoicism on the basis that Jessica was 'dull' and 'only an eight' as opposed to the elusive 'ten'. Then there's Harmony's boss, who self-confessedly loses interest in women once they reach legal age; and his mother, an obsessive chain-smoker whose lungs, according to her doctor, 'should be declared a national disaster area'. His social missteps and emotional misjudgments are regrettable as he drifts inexorably into a one-night-stand with his neighbor, Natasha, a blonde embodiment of every soul sucking over-sharer you've ever met.
By his own account, the 30-year-old Harmony (Justin Rice, looking all of 19) grew up "with limited access to mental health." And for the duration of "Harmony and Me," a low-fi comedy of sulks and self-pity, he will try to prove it.
A recent dumpee whose ex refers to him as "the loser," Harmony wears his heartbreak like a badge and his former beloved’s likeness around his neck. Thus shackled, he shuffles through the movie unloading his pain on anyone who will listen, while a clutch of quirky supporting players — including his less-than-harmonious family and a breast-obsessed one-night stand (Allison Latta, terriffic) — urges him to get a grip.
Written and directed by Bob Byington and produced with the help of the Sundance Institute (normally a pusher of projects no audience is likely to cut itself on), "Harmony and Me" unspools on unlovely video in a featureless Austin, Tex. Yet despite the film’s sketchy aesthetic and barely animate lead, its tone is carefully contrived: I’ll wager no one in your circle is as dryly funny or spontaneously surreal as Harmony’s nonsupport group.
The significance of the film’s music, however, may take longer to register: the awkward, fragmented and occasionally soaring sound of grief being transformed into a way forward.
HARMONY AND ME
Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Bob Byington; director of photography, Jim Eastburn; edited by Frank Ross and Jacob Vaughan; production designer, Yvonne Boudreaux; produced by Kristen Tucker. At the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, Museum of Modern Art. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. This film is not rated.
The Museum of Modern Art presents the theatrical premiere of Bob Byington’s slacker comedy Harmony and Me (2009), from September 18 through 24, 2009, in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters.
Director Byington will be present at the September 18 and 19 screenings to introduce the film and participate in a post-screening question and answer session.
A major highlight of the 2009 New Directors/New Films festival, the longstanding collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Harmony and Me takes place in the independent film capital Austin, Texas, where a melancholy young lyricist named Harmony (Justin Rice) refuses to let go of the heartbreak caused by a crushing break-up with his girlfriend.
He remains stubbornly unhappy, reducing his story of lost love to a broken-record spiel that he repeats to friends, family, and anyone else who will listen.
Although his depression annoys his tough mom, Harmony’s friends, as oddball and eccentric as he, seem largely unaffected by his cultivation of misery.
In addition to Rice, a musician who is also front-man for the band Bishop Allen, the film features Kevin Corrigan as Harmony’s sidekick Carlos.
Byington’s film employs a barebones aesthetic to present a contemporary portrait of a descent towards rock bottom that ultimately resolves in redemption.
Harmony and Me received an Annenberg Fellowship from the Sundance Institute in 2008, and, in addition to New Directors/New Films, was also screened at the 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival. Director Byington was recently awarded the Stanley Kubrick Award for "Bold and Innovative Filmmaking" at the Traverse City Film Festival.
MoMA’s weeklong run of Harmony and Me is organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.
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