Drew (Colin Burgess) looks pretty much like every guy you’ve ever met on a night out in East Williamsburg, and that’s the point. You know the guy: A smallish white guy wearing wire-rimmed glasses, white Converse paired with work pants and a well ironed button up, sporting an expensive haircut, a mustache, and a puzzled look that insinuates he’s never done anything wrong in his life. You’re already picturing this guy in your head. It will not shock you to learn that Drew has vague aspirations toward life as a professional musician, but his “band is kind of on a break right now,” so for now he’s stuck working a dead-end data entry job, which is slowly killing him inside.
One day, that voice we all have in our heads that gently (or not so gently) reminds us that we need to pay rent briefly quiets in Drew’s head, and a new voice takes over. “If I have to input one more number into a little box, I’m gonna have some kind of physical reaction,” Drew bluntly informs his well-meaning boss (James Webb) right before he impulsively quits on the spot. Drew is free! And therein lies the problem…Now what?
Free Time, writer/director Ryan Martin Brown’s debut feature film, is so funny precisely because we all know this guy, and on some level, we can identify with his directionless struggle. Unless you’re out there living your dream (which, congrats!), we all hate our day jobs, but those dreaded jobs are also the very routines tethering us to the rest of human civilization. Drew’s day job stands in the way of his dreams, but he has no idea what those dreams really are, and he feels powerless to make a move in any direction. His roommate Rajat (Rajat Suresh) and Rajat’s partner Kim (Holmes) politely but firmly make it clear that they’re willing to help Drew up to a certain point, but for the most part, he’s on his own, which for Drew is more paralyzing than it is exciting. In a city full of possibilities, Drew is unable to conjure up anything to do besides take a walk, drunk-call friends who are all busy with their lives and fumble a cute girl (Jessie Pinnick) by insisting upon showing her his band’s demo mid-makeout.
Rent is due soon enough and Drew, still plagued by indecision and rejection, has nothing to show for his extended vacation. Instead of turning these restless feelings into something productive, Drew figures out that people will listen to him if he co-opts half-baked, Twitter-soaked political language to express his discomfort. Suddenly, Drew isn’t unemployed and uninteresting because he’s lazy, selfish and uninspired. It’s because of the system! “This is why people hate America…capitalism, I finally understand it,” Drew whines to whoever is around. When Drew’s old job won’t take him back, he bemoans the “discrimination” he’s facing to his Black boss, and is unable to see why he isn’t being taken seriously. The only people dumber than Drew are those who decide to follow him.
Many will misinterpret Free Time’s “message” as speaking to some sort of impossible millennial quandary, between working a day job and having money, and being happy and being broke, but those people are as misguided as the suckers who listen to Drew. Drew is a data analyst working in an air conditioned SoHo office, not a construction worker or a day laborer. Drew quits his job and is just as unhappy as he was before; he is just as unsatisfied with his life lying in bed watching the same movie for the third time as he is working in data entry. Drew’s refusal to confront what he really wants out of life and his lack of curiosity about the possibilities of where life may take him are what hold him back, not his job.
Drew isn’t a bad person, but he is a well-meaning fool who craves attention and approval. Burgess has a hilarious but subtle way of furrowing his brow that communicates Drew’s constant consideration of how to best spin a given situation to make him look good, especially when things are spiraling out of his control, which is often. Burgess and Brown aren’t so cynical as to write Drew off completely—we feel for him, even as we laugh at his puzzlement. Brown wrote the screenplay with Burgess, as well as many of the other players, in mind, which comes out in their natural performances that are well-aligned with each other.
Free Time was shot over just 10 days, but you wouldn’t know it from cinematographer Victor Inglés’ strong shot composition and Brown’s well thought-out comedic direction. Brown takes his time with each shot, lingering over Drew’s discomfort and bafflement when things don’t go his way. For a first-time director, Brown is confident in his camera placement and assured in his ability to communicate with actors. For his part, Burgess is no stranger to pulling out a really funny performance under serious time constraints; he gave one of the more wry performances of the indie scene last year in Dad and Step-Dad, which was fully improvised and shot in only four days.
Free Time speaks to a certain millennial malaise, but it’s not naïve enough to assert that we would be better off if we all spontaneously quit our jobs without a backup plan. Yes, inflation is absolutely out of control, wages are not going up and our political leaders do not have our best interests at heart. These are real issues that deserve our attention, but they are not always the direct reason why white, middle-class guys like Drew are unsatisfied with their lives, no matter how much they want to play socialist as a means to the end of gaining respect from their peers. This is by no means a new phenomenon, but millennials have certainly found a way to be super annoying about it.
Director: Ryan Martin Brown
Writer: Ryan Martin Brown
Starring: Colin Burgess, Rajat Suresh, Holmes, James Webb, Jessie Pinnick
Release Date: March 22, 2024
Brooklyn-based film writer Katarina Docalovich was raised in an independent video store and never really left. Her passions include sipping lime seltzer, trying on perfume and spending hours theorizing about Survivor. You can find her scattered thoughts as well as her writing on Twitter.