Andrew Bujalski Conjures Intimate Moments from Imagined Interactions in There There

Andrew Bujalski, the filmmaker behind “mumblecore” touchstone Funny Ha Ha and tender workplace comedy Support the Girls, tackles unexpectedly embittered subject matter alongside unique pandemic challenges with There There. The writer/director’s latest is composed of six separate yet interconnected conversations between pairs of people: new lovers, an alcoholic and her AA sponsor, a teacher and her student’s mother, a techbro and his lawyer, a man and the ghost of his deceased loved one, a bartender and a sloshed customer. While these interactions involve personal revelations that give way to oft-heated exchanges, the raw emotions elicited between scene partners is conjured entirely through Bujalski’s own editing process. Shot during the early months of 2021 in compliance with low-budget COVID protocols, each actor’s scenes were filmed in near total isolation, often without even knowing who would be cast to play whoever it is they’re conversing with. In other words, one actor is There, another over There, never actually together.

The first segment is shared between two middle-aged lovers (Lili Taylor and Lennie James) who wake up after spending the night together for the first time. Viewers unaware of the film’s gimmick might not even notice that both actors never actually share the frame, but Bujalski’s intent isn’t to obscure this ploy. In fact, the character’s physical separation is all but embraced: with each reverse shot—technically, the entire film is reverse shots—the observation that the walls behind James are green while Taylor’s are white is increasingly impossible to ignore.

The dawning realization that these two characters will never share the same frame (and that the tryst they discuss in detail will never be alluded to with physical contact) evokes a palpable sense of sadness as well as confusion. As the duo talk through their feelings about the previous evening, they both become increasingly unable to understand each other. While James conveys that he had an amazing time and would love to see Taylor again (going so far to suggest he can call out of work and extend their date), she gets wrapped up in a self-pitying whirlwind about her age, suggesting that she’s much older than the women he typically takes home. The frustration inherent to their strained interaction is only amplified by the unseen chasm between both actors, both relaying their respective lines to iPhone lenses overseen by Bujalski’s regular DP Matthias Grunsky.

While this intimate (mis)communication feels solidly in the director’s wheelhouse, the segments that follow veer into an outright pessimism that’s seemingly at odds with Bujalski’s broader filmography. Sure, his characters might be melancholic and directionless, but they rarely espouse the type of vitriol that Annie LaGanga hurls at Molly Gordon’s meek English teacher during a parent-teacher conference-turned-confrontation. Aware that her son is snapping vulgar up-skirt pictures of his underage classmates that he then sells on the Internet, she derides the young teacher and holds her responsible for turning a blind eye. “I’m not a bad teacher,” she whispers with a sniffle. “Oh, honey, you are,” she replies. The exchange would be wryly funny if it weren’t so unnerving in its emotional bleakness, perhaps amplified by the use of everyday iPhone imagery that mimics the pedophilic pornography LaGanga’s son is peddling.