Making its way around the festival circuit is the Butler Brothers’ newest brew, Confusions of an Unmarried Couple. Co-director Brett Butler himself stars as one half of the film’s cast, the mostly shirtless and degenerate Dan, who spends his time sitting around his apartment drowning in cans of beer. This guy is like Jeff Lebowski’s younger brother. His problem? He can’t quite get over his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Lisa (Naomi Johnson). What follows is an almost faux-documentary style film examining this relationship and what made it fail. Who doesn’t like peeking in at the failures of other people’s relationships? This may very well be the film for you.
Dan has no problems exploring possible infidelity scenarios candidly in his interviews but claims he would never do something like. It’s been done to him, just like it’s been done to many of us, and he just isn’t into that. At first, we can’t fully grasp if Dan and Lisa were a good couple to begin with or if Dan even wants her back. He sneaks into her house one time and appears to try to take the sheets of her mattress. It’s unclear if he is doing it for spite or simply out of necessity.
Some relationships begin tumultuously and last much longer than they should have. Dan and Lisa seem like perfect candidates for this formula. Then we learn that their biggest problem stemmed from the bedroom, when Dan walked in on Lisa in bed with another woman.
Though the film claims to be written by Brett himself, it has an almost improvisational feel, complimented nicely by the hand-held directing style. The Butler Bros. (also halved by Jason Butler) always make sure we’re in the face of the conflicted duo throughout each of their arguments.
Confusions of an Unmarried Couple is far from a bad movie but it’s one that definitely could have benefited from a few additives. We follow Dan a large portion of this film’s brief running time and he is not exactly full of great material. The character and performance are entertaining enough, however, he isn’t fully captivating. This is clearly a couple who just weren’t meant to be together from the get-go. Hearing them talk about every element of their failures, giving us no hope whatsoever that this will fix itself, fails to hang on to your attention. The film has elements of Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall); it just doesn’t provide us with anything new.
