Free Samples

This is the definition of a "small" film - no car chases, no guns, relatively little action, lots of talking but somehow moving and enjoyable. The humor is chuckle rather than laugh out loud but the film keeps moving and is never boring. Perhaps best watched at home rather than in a movie theater with minimal distractions. Good acting, even in the smallest of parts, is the mainstay of this movie and the direction is subtle and relatively invisible. The movie is about a 20 something who has hit a roadblock and has literally dropped out of the life she was living. A day spent running a mobile custard stand somehow jolts our 20 something back to life. If you don't need explosions and special effects to enjoy yourself, consider investing 80 minutes in this fine little film.

It's kind of the female version of clerks! Jillian spends the day filling in for a friend. She hands out free samples of some mysterious food, which may or may not be made of dairy. No one knows. Most people are rude. A couple are friendly. Jillian sends a homeless person to get a coffee, but of course, the person doesn't comes back. And she runs into her ex. And of course, the ex's new girlfriend. Or is she not a "new" girlfriend? It's complicated. Some fun names making appearances.. tippi hedron (the birds), jesse eisenberg, jason ritter. It's an interesting afternoon, watching her interact with the various people. Kind of a study of everyday people. Directed by jay gammil. He was nominated for several emmies for the great race. Written by jim beggarly.

I am retired, I watch movies every day, I collect them and I only stumbled across this gem in 2017. There should be more than just 23 reviews of this wonderful film so I am adding mine. I thought the movie Clerks was brilliant, and I think this movie is similarly brilliant. Similar themes, similar presentation, similar degree of profundity, but Free Samples is much more friendly and the acting is far more charming. And the charm stays with you as you contemplate the possibilities.

This one-set Indy tries very hard to be sharp and mordant and timely. The trouble is that nothing about the characters or their situations rings true. The main set is an ice cream truck located in what looks like a borderline ghetto where the heroine must give away free samples of chocolate and vanilla, nothing else. The workers and everyone in the neighborhood seem to already know that the pseudo ice cream is horrible. So what are they really doing there? In what alternate universe would this actually happen?

Apparently in the same universe where a self-absorbed Cali-blonde Stanford law student would be SHOCKED, SHOCKED I say, to learn that 5 years after she left home, her dad moved out and took up with a trophy bimbo. That evidently never happens in alternate universe Z, so of course it sends our heroine into a drunken tailspin where she must engage in contrived sardonic banter with every unlikely walk-on character who ambles by her pseudo ice cream truck. Sadly, none of these encounters feels more forced or contrived than the heroine's confrontation with her unwanted fiancée.

After 90 minutes of this I yearned to get back to our universe where Cheech and Chong would have a very good business plan for that ice cream truck working the ghetto and where all their customers' curious demands for "stamps" would make sense.

Jillian (Jess Weixler) has left Stanford law school and her boyfriend for a semester to try something new. Only she's no good at anything other than drinking. After a night of passout drinking, she has to give out free samples of ice cream from a food truck for a friend who is joining an intervention for her brother. She faces people with her acerbic wit and her pounding hangover.

I love Jess Weixler's sardonic personality. And it works great especially in the first half with Jason Ritter. They have a fun combative conversation. It's not so much with Jesse Eisenberg. She has more chemistry with Ritter.

The last half does stumble a little bit. Tippi Hedren is playing an interesting character but it's just too cliché. And when school friend Paula drops by, it hits that speed bump a little too hard. For that kind of coincidence, it could never maintain any believability.