Saw Eagle vs Shark, a quirky hipster/indie romantic comedy set in New Zealand. It follows the romance of the man-child Jarred and the saintly but kind of lame Lily. The film opens by showing Lily's infatuation with the be-mullet-ed Jarred. She is attracted because he has a mole just above his lip, just like she does. Eventually, he becomes interested with her after witnessing her natural ability at a Mortal Combat-style game called "Fighting Man." Everyone in the film are nice people who are sort of terrible at what they do. Lily's brother is a cartoonist who is not funny and can't draw. Lily is fired quickly from her job at a fast food joint. Jarred works at a movie store and clearly sees himself as a sensitive ninja/stud. Much comedy is mined from Jarred's delusions.
The dialogue throughout the whole film is sort of flat and emotionless. This dead-pan delivery is familiar to anyone who's seen Flight of the Concords and which I guess is part of the New Zealand culture or something ( this is based on the, like, three non-Peter-Jackson things I've seen that were from New Zealand.) Everything's very quirky. There's also stop-motion interludes following the adventures of the two apple-cores. Very twee and cute. I really don't mind these twee indie films. I'd rather watch a film drip with artificial sincerity than with equally fake, pat, glibness.
A cute little movie, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Napoleon Dynamite (which, I think, this movie is heavily copying/referencing.) There's a touch more pain in this one, but there's more romance too.
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