The Baltimorons: Quirky and adorable

The Baltimorons (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profaity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Director Jay Duplass’ offbeat little charmer isn’t merely a rom-com focused on two lonely people who deserve better out of life; it’s also a love letter to Baltimore ... specifically, Baltimore on Christmas Eve.

 

Having navigated a string of minor crises, if not always gracefully — with more to come —
Cliff (Michael Strassner) and Didi (Liz Larsen) take a few minutes to stroll along a
gaily decorated neighborhood street.

No surprise, since Duplass co-wrote the script with Michael Strassner, who regards the city as his home turf.

As one-half of Duplass Brothers Productions, Jay and sibling Mark have delivered a string of off-beat indie films and television series, wearing multiple hats as directors, producers, writers and even actors. This is the first film Jay has directed in more than a decade.

 

He certainly hasn’t lost his touch.

 

The Baltimorons has echoes of Martin Scorsese’s darkly comic 1985 farce, After Hours, but with several key distinctions. Duplass’ touch here is much kinder and gentler, and the two primary characters are warm and relatable.

 

If not necessarily right away.

 

The saga opens with a fleeting prologue shocker, as an obviously inebriated Cliff (Michael Strassner) clumsily attempts to take his life. 

 

Flash-forward half a year, to early Christmas Eve, as a now-sober Cliff makes plans to spend the day with the family of his fiancée, Brittany (Olivia Luccardi). She obviously has the patience of a saint, having nurtured and stood by him after the earlier crisis; that said, she’s also the worst sort of helicopter companion, monitoring his every choice and move, ensuring that he never again gets near any alcohol.

 

She even tracks his phone, and immediately calls if he’s not where she thinks he should be.

 

Luccardi plays her as compassionate and well-meaning, but also much too pushy. We understand her concern, but at the same time wince at her smothering attentiveness.

 

Poor Cliff, still guilty over what he put her through, accepts this hovering because he feels it’s the right thing to do ... but he’s clearly miserable. As introduced, Strassner makes him a large, forlorn teddy bear: shoulders slumped, morose expressions, forced smiles and wisecracks rather than serious conversations.

 

He comes by the latter naturally, since his longtime love is improv comedy. But Brittany has made him give that up, since it went hand-in-hand with his alcoholism; by way of catering to the demand that he find something else to do, Cliff is studying to be a mortgage broker. (Like that’ll ever happen.)

 

The point is, she’s forcing him to become something he finds alien ... and that isn’t a recipe for lifetime happiness.

It Follows: A smart, scary little shocker

It Follows (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for disturbing violent and sexual content, graphic nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Young indie filmmaker David Robert Mitchell acknowledges a debt to horror auteurs John Carpenter and George Romero, and it’s easy to see why: Mitchell’s little chiller, It Follows, is suffused with the original Halloween vibe.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

As the full implications of her terrifying dilemma are explained to Jay (Maika Monroe,
center), her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) and former boyfriend Greg (Daniel Zovatto) react with
varying degrees of skepticism. Their doubts won't last long...

Mitchell’s film is unsettling and nervous-making, in the manner of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead and 1978’s Halloween, both of which emphasized atmosphere over the gratuitous gore they were (somewhat unfairly) accused of spawning in subsequent rip-offs. Mitchell understands the distinction; rather than gross out the audience, he’s far more interested in sending us home with a desire to leave the lights on all night.

Not to mention regarding the next sidewalk-strolling stranger with a worried eye.

For the most part, Mitchell plays this card skillfully: This is a seriously disturbing suburban nightmare, and editor Julio Perez IV knows precisely how to pace cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ often disconcerting camera set-ups: a slightly wonky angle here, a worrying overhead shot there, a tense tracking shot taking us to the next scene.

Nor does Mitchell cheat, with cats bursting from darkened closets, or potential victims playing nasty tricks on each other. This narrative is scary not because of in-our-face surprises or frenzied assaults, but because of inexorable, slow-moving doom: the horror of ghastly inevitability.

The setting is a dilapidated neighborhood in suburban Detroit, with homes just distressed enough to suggest residents trying their best to maintain appearances, despite rampant unemployment and fractured families. The occasional empty house signifies a battle lost, just as nearby streets leading toward the city pass entire blocks of shattered structures that look more like the aftermath of the London blitz, than any portion of a modern American metropolis.

The actual time, though, feels ambiguous (and deliberately so, I’m sure). Technology exists, but smart phones aren’t ubiquitous; neither are we far enough back to glimpse LPs and turntables. It’s as if time, like suburban renewal, has skipped this particular enclave, which exists in something of a dreamlike haze.

Which is appropriate, given what’s about to happen.

College-age Jay (Maika Monroe) and her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) lead a casual lifestyle with their mother, the latter an alcoholic who barely charts her daughters’ comings and goings. Despite this, Jay and Kelly seem to be reasonably well-adjusted, spending most of their time watching old fright flicks with best buds Yara (Olivia Luccardi) and Paul (Keir Gilchrist), who has had an obvious crush on Jay for many years.