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Trailer Watch: Andrew Bujalski’s There There
Andrew Bujalski (Support the Girls, Computer Chess, Funny Ha Ha) returns with his seventh feature film as writer/director, the pandemic-esque film There There. The film features an ensemble cast, including Jason Schwartzman, Lennie James, Lili Taylor and Molly Gordon as narratively connected yet visually isolated characters, with Bujalski filming each individual performance separately before joining actors with their scene partners in the edit.
In an introduction to his interview with Bujalski after the film’s Tribeca premiere back in June, Vadim Rizov describes There There‘s narrative setup:
“After a disorientingly shot-at-home sax solo from musician Jon Natchez (whose quarantine-vibes solo sets provide interludes between segments), There There begins the first of six narrative sequences centered around pairs of unnamed characters with Lennie James and Lili Taylor, who’ve spent the night together for the first time. They’re introduced in rigorously locked-off shots from each others’ sideways POV and equally uncanny overhead views, and seem to be both right next to each other and impossibly far away—nearly every shot after the first one is, by definition, a reverse shot. It quickly becomes clear that, for whatever reason, they will never be in the same frame at the same time, an unavoidable clue to There There‘s pandemic-origins experiment in stitching solo performances (shot separately on iPhones, often months apart) into extended duologues.”
Magnolia Pictures will release There There in theaters and on demand November 18.
