Donald Cried

I don't think I've ever watched a movie that resonated as much as this one.

I have a Donald in my life. One of my best friends in high school. Now 10 years out he still lives with his mom, works a dead end job, smokes weed, and hangs out with the same dead beat friends. Snags a girl, only to have it all fall apart.

I'll come into town once every few years and we catch up. It's just like Donald Cried. Drive around, see old faces that have not gone anywhere, have a few fun moments like the old days. Then by the end of it all, reality returns and I go back to my life and he stay right where he is in his.

This movie made me laugh,

It made me smile,

And it broke my heart.

Most movies sell "magic". The happy ending. The guy we like bettering himself and his life. The loser/underdog coming out on top. Not this one. No, this movie is as close to reality as it gets. And it hurts. I still feel like there's an arrow in my heart.

This movie will never be popular. Reality sucks. And people don't go to the movies for "reality", they want magic. Reality is a hard sell. Never the less, I'm glad I saw Donald Cried and I recommend it.

I don't think I'll ever forget this movie.

I hadn't seen the trailer for this one or read much about it, so I didn't really know what to expect when I turned the movie on, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Despite the obviously low budget, the acting is extremely good. I might even say it's some of the best I've seen, which is very rare and something that's hardly ever seen in movies with such low budgets.

The story is about two high school friends who meet up again twenty years later. One has moved away and moved on with his life and the other is still a child. They reconnect after one of the friend returns home following the death of a relative, kind of like in Garden State. As a matter of fact, the guy who plays the Zach Braff character in this film even looks a lot like Braff. The guy who plays the Peter Sarsgaard character is much less cool than Sarsgaard but much more interesting. Like in Garden State, the two go on a day-long adventure around town together, but the similarities stop there.

After watching this movie, I read a couple other reviews online and was surprised to find out that many people disliked it. Someone said it felt like the filmmakers were trying to make a movie like one of Adam McKay's, but failed because it wasn't funny enough. I don't know how they came up with that comparison, but Adam McKay is known for his dumb comedies, and this is something much more than that. Although very funny (even hysterical) at times, it doesn't go after cheap laughs or laugh-out-loud ridiculousness. It goes for authenticity, and it definitely succeeds in that realm. No matter what anyone went into this film expecting, it becomes pretty obvious in the first five or ten minutes that it is not just another dumb comedy. Not by a long shot.

Another reviewer blamed the low-key nature of the film on the small budget. I don't think he knew what he was talking about. The only thing I can think of is that these viewers are of below average intelligence and just don't understand life. They certainly don't understand this film, and perhaps find it hard to believe that these types of characters can exist in the real world. But they can, and they do. I've met many of them. And I found myself identifying and sympathizing with both of the two main characters at different points throughout the film.

But I guess for some, they think these guys would be better off in a dumb comedy with little substance and big dumb jokes that really aren't that funny anyway. I guess if you fall into that category I would recommend you watch a different film such as Mr. Woodcock or Homegrown, both starring Billy Bob Thornton, rather than this one. You may find those more to your liking.

The characters, and particularly the title character Donald, who is played by the film's director, are very complex and well-written. Their odd behavior would feel over-the-top and ridiculous and fake, except that the filmmakers somehow found that perfect sweet spot where instead they feel totally real. They're not the kinds of characters you normally see in movies, but they're then kind of people who exist in real life, with all their strange quirks and awkwardness. They feel almost like characters out of a John Cassavetes film.

The story also feels very real. Everything about it feels real as we spend time with the characters and learn about their lives. There are a lot of questions that don't get answered, and often the characters say so much by not saying anything at all. The story is sentimental and has a moral to it, but it doesn't try to trick the viewer at any point (at least I don't think it does!), which I like. It tells its story and its message by showing us a couple of days in the life of real, ordinary people.

So often characters in films are two dimensional, and that's how we see a lot of people in real life, too. You never really know someone. They keep their secrets to themselves. But this film shows us the lives of two real, complex people, which can help teach us something about those around us and blah blah blah.

The story here unfolds naturally and realistically, but it's never predictable. It is in no way contrived and it feels totally raw and authentic. If ever there was a perfect example of filmmakers doing the best they could with what little they had to work with, this is it.

It's the type of story that many of us could easily see happening in our own lives, and which we'd forget about it in two days as we get caught up in the next thing, being only mildly significant but totally relevant. But here, captured on film, it somehow seems profound and completely unforgettable. Although, to be fair, I did just watch it today, so it's possible that I'll forget the whole thing in two days as well. But I have a feeling it will stick with me for at least a little longer than that.

So no big laughs, no big story, but that's what is good about it. It's a story about people. You don't love them and you sometimes hate them, but you feel for them. Oh yeah, I should also say that even the minor characters, like the boss at the bowling alley, were really well done and fun to watch.

Anyway, I enjoyed this movie very much for a lot of reasons and I very much look forward to seeing what these filmmakers come up with next. This was their first feature film and they knocked it out of the park so I bet they can come up with something even better next time! Hopefully they don't screw it up.

There is a palpable sense you get while watching the quirked-out indy dramedy "Donald Cried". It is the distinct impression that this maturation-blunted misfit stoner is based on a guy, or perhaps an amalgamation of them, that Writer, Director and Co-Star Kris Avedisian knows, or knew, pretty damn well.

Avedisian's take on one of life's helplessly pitiful losers is plain and simple just so very sad, sad, sad...stultifyingly sad. Some of what his oblivious and completely without filter character of Donald says and does is laugh-out-loud funny, yes. But you almost feel guilty finding folly in these moments because we see how repressively dismal and desperate this downtrodden dude's existence is, replete with an horrifically repugnant stepfath...stepCREATURE. Physically, Donald left high school some two decades ago. Emotionally and mentally, he never will. He can't, and clearly does not WANT to, break free of the caste system that defined him, and everyone else, in those carefree and couldn't care less rambunctious days of his misanthropic metalhead youth.

Donald's teenage running buddy, Pete (Co-Writer Jesse Wakeman, who I just gotta say here bares a striking resemblance to a grown-up Jerry "Leave It to Beaver" Mathers), is a different animal entirely. After Pete graduated from prep school, he BOLTED out of Warwick, Rhode Island for fun and fortune as a financier in New York City with absolutely no notion of returning. Except, that is, to tend to his recently deceased grandmother's affairs. Which is what reluctantly reunites him with Donald. And, man, is there some SERIOUS latent hostility festering beneath the skin of these two, played out in not all that passive/angrily aggressive fashion during, among other interactions, a pulverizing playground football game and a furious, aim directly for the head, snowball fight. Pete is not a likable fellow. And his deplorable treatment of Donald can't instill anything in you but, once again, circling back to my fundamental premise, saturating sorrow.

This is not to say that I inherently disliked "Donald Cried" at all. Avedisian and Wakeman, who have collaborated before on other small-scale projects, are by and large an engaging tandem, and they succeed in generating a real, if not real ODDBALL, chemistry as the movie progresses. And I especially appreciate the fact that this production was shot on location in the actual town of Warwick, often times amidst steady wind-whipped snowfall, which serves to accentuate the uncompromisingly bleak tone of the narrative.

Considering all that we are introduced to over the course of 24 hours in this story, it hardly comes as a shock to anyone that "Donald Cried". The genuine stunner would be this: the revelation that this man doesn't weep openly and without a wisp of restraint every single day he must awaken to suffer a punishing onslaught of remorseless spirit annihilation. No different than the day preceding. And precisely as will be his fate for all the days forthcoming.

Yeah, I gotcher "comic relief" right HERE, pal.

Poor Peter. Years after successfully escaping his small-town for the big city, the dapper financier is forced to return to collect his grandmother's ashes. This leads to a very uncomfortable reunion. Peter has obviously moved on, literally and figuratively, but not his old neighbor pal Donald. Nope. Donald is still the same old high school hoser, super keen to rekindle the good old days.

It's a classic premise, that works well on a cringe, comedic level, as Peter, the desperate, reluctant hostage tries valiantly to escape the eager clutches of the oblivious Donald, who seems to be dealing with some disturbing baggage.

"Donald Cries" twists that old formula just enough to explore several deeper issues, and the film grows fuller as the characters reveal themselves.

Writer, director, star Kris Avedisian is quite the talent, and his take on the wide-eyed, gung ho man-child Donald is a character for the ages.

What this movie is really about is the joy of performing. Wakeman and Avedisian play off each other as beautifully as Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in The In-Laws, Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts in Pope of Greenwich Village and Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamatti in Sideways. Two polar opposites are forced together for 24 hours, Avedisian presses Wakeman's buttons and the suspense is when Wakeman is going to blow. Wakeman, much like Arkin, is a great slow burner. And Avedisian pulls off the trick of being one of the biggest losers in the history of film but still remain strangely sympathetic. It's amazing to see that they've done so little else because they seem like seasoned pros at acting for the camera. What's also amazing is that they were able to film in such large quantities of snow with no continuity issues. What in the world would they have done if the temps shot up to 50 degrees and all the snow melted? In any event, somehow the snow adds something. The movie has a real lived in feel and made me laugh out loud at least a dozen times. Maybe it's just me but movies set in cold weather always seem to turn out well. Would make a great double feature with the gentler, but no less idiosyncratic or entertaining, indie flick Cold Weather.