A Glass Eye production. Produced, directed by Brien Burroughs. Improvised dialogue.
With: Dan Donovan, Tim Orr, Gerri Lawlor, Kurt Bodden.
The pet supply business is revealed in all its unsuspected sordidness in "Suckerfish," a malevolently funny comedy that pulls off a high-wire act against heavy odds. Improvised with scarcely any floundering by a resourceful cast working from a rough outline, this eccentric, highly improbable indie from San Francisco reveals Brien Burroughs' deft hand at mining depths of human meanness and humor from the most unlikely material. A good 35mm blowup from the 16mm it was shot on should be the next step before further fest showings, giving root to the cult following that could translate into a limited theatrical life in fringe urban specialized houses and college towns.
After a vogue in the late '60s and early '70s, improv-based screen comedy has been a rarity, probably for the good reason that its hit-and-miss nature is too unreliable both artistically and economically. But whatever his working methods, director Burroughs clearly managed to impose enough of a structure -- and his actors obviously had sufficient grasp of their characters -- to make this dog-eat-dog parable about the laws of survival in the mercantile jungle snap to comic life and stay on its feet to the very end.
You have to hand it to Burroughs at the outset for setting his action within a profession heretofore ignored in American screen comedy -- wholesale pet supply. Unsurprisingly, the men who inhabit the field are an odd lot to begin with: There's Dick Goodman (Tim Orr), a fast-talking salesman with something of the aspiring '50s hipster about him, and handsome Alan Walker (Dan Donovan), who's slick enough to sell unneeded products to the gullible, touchy-feely breed who tend to be pet store owners, but is too lily-livered to swim in a big pond.
When a new salesman, the clean-cut Ken Preston (Kurt Bodden), arrives to take over from a retiring old pro who controlled the majority of the market, the unscrupulous Dick proposes to Alan that they squeeze him out by spreading malicious rumors about him to their impressionable clients.
The scheme works better than they could have imagined: The store owners don't enjoy hearing stories about how Ken practices his golf drives by whacking bundled-up pet rodents as far as he can. Ken hasn't a clue what to do about his dwindling sales until he gets wind of the "secret" that everyone in town knows, except Dick -- that Alan is having an affair with Dick's wife, Elizabeth (Gerri Lawlor).
Turning the tables on Ken's nemeses gives the story a lively final act and snugly fits into the film's thoroughly Darwinian view of the world, a perspective hilariously, if gruesomely, underscored by Burroughs' most audacious cinematic coup -- frequent cutaways to pet store animals, notably fish and lizards, making dinner out of their smaller and more defenseless brethren.
As larky and unassuming as "Suckerfish" may be on the surface, due to its humor-slanted everyday dialogue and light, jazzy score, its bite is sharp enough to draw blood, up to and including its surprisingly harsh ending.
Of the cast members, Orr, as the field's most ruthless competitor, and Bodden, as the strait-laced Midwestern newcomer, seem most completely to inhabit their characters. Lawlor amusingly expresses her increasing impatience with the men in her life, while Donovan has the insidious soft-sell of the velvet-gloved, iron-fisted salesman down pat, but is less edifying in delineating Alan's personal life, being far too timorous around his aggressive mistress to be a convincing object of desire; only scenes that lack precision and total clarity are the romantic interludes between the illicit lovers.
While it's unfortunate that pic's technical aspects don't match the sharpness of the direction and playing, the film's inspiration has no trouble transcending its limitations when all is said and done, because the comic voice and verve here are quite distinctive and have a refreshing, organic feel.
Camera (Monaco Labs color, 16mm), Christopher Brown; editor, Gail Mallimson; theme music, Jason Tubbs; store music, Joshua Raoul Brody; technical director, Greg Madarasz; associate producer, Cassandra Robertson; assistant director, Sarah McLeod. Reviewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival, March 12, 1999. Running time: 88 MIN.
Contact Todd McCarthy at
tmccarthy@reedbusiness.com