DVD movie review: Lovely By Surprise

Plus: Push, The Unborn and Knowing.

by John P. Meyer

There's a lot to be said for "offbeat" when it comes to independent art house films, and in that area director/writer Kirt Gunn's Lovely By Surprise (releasing on DVD on Tuesday, July 7) excels. Until the final several minutes, in fact, it's so far offbeat that viewers may find themselves tripping over their own befuddlement.

Its premise -- a writer working on a novel starts to suspect that one of the characters she's writing about KNOWS that she's writing about him -- immediately reminds us of the plot behind Stranger Than Fiction. But the strangeness of the plot behind Lovely By Surprise leaves Stranger Than Fiction a lap behind in the strangeness race.

Marian, our novelist character (played by the perky, irresistible Carrie Preston), has been running into the brick wall of writer's block. She consults with her former professor, a gray-haired fellow named Jackson (Austin Pendleton, convincing as the aging intellectual elitist with a fondness for female students), who tries to help her out of the corner in which she's written herself. And it's a doozy:

See, Marian's story involves two brothers named Humkin and Mopekey (!) who have lived their entire lives on a houseboat, isolated from society with the exception of the milkman who drives his van up to their boat once a week. (Yep, their houseboat is aground, in a desert-like bowl. Similar to what happens to lakes most summers here in North Texas.)

Humkin (Michael Chernus) and Mopekey (Dallas Roberts) sit around in their BVDs (more's the pity, in terms of the searing visuals) eating cereal (with milk!) and talking about how great their cereal (with milk) is. They then build things out of their cereal boxes and play child-like make-believe games with each other. It's all very idyllic -- if you're Humkin or Mopekey, anyway.

For potential readers of Marian's incipient book, however -- not to mention us movie watchers -- it's really quite tedious to the point of annoyance, even after only a few minutes of cinematic immersion in the action.

So Marian seeks Jackson's counsel, feeding him the basics of her plot over cups of coffee at a greasy spoon. Astonishingly, he doesn't simply tell her to scrap the whole idea, but indulges her by suggesting a means of adding dramatic tension to her tale. She must, says Jackson, have one of the brothers murder the other.

Marian is averse to this idea: she has, after all, invested considerable creative effort (to her mind, at least) in the creation of both Humkin and Mopekey. But she also respects the advice of her instructor, and recognizes the fact that SOMETHING has to give aboard the ol' S.S. Runaground.

But her attempt at orchestrating the homicidal deed goes horribly awry, and Humkin -- BVDs and all (and nothing else) -- escapes into the world outside the houseboat. And Marian's story.

Which is where a parallel narrative comes into play, involving an emotionally troubled used car salesman named Bob (Reg Rogers, in the movie's standout performance). Bob is brand new at this car sales game, and lot manager Dave (Richard Masur) bends over backwards to have him make a go at it. We quickly catch on that Bob -- who has a young daughter at home named Mimi (Lena Lamer) -- has recently lost his wife under unspecified tragic circumstances. So Dave and all the other car lot employees are accommodating to the point of self-abasement as poor Bob scares off one potential customer after another by offering them reasons why they probably ought NOT to buy a new (used) car.

At home, Bob tries with all his might to maintain a positive attitude with Mimi, but she has withdrawn into her safe internal place and refuses to engage. It becomes clear that the missing mom had been the primary child-rearer, as Bob's attempts to connect with his daughter are painfully inept. Observing Bob and Mimi in the process of failing to interact is torturous: Their emotional trauma becomes our own.

It's at about this juncture when Humkin shows up, wandering onto the car lot where Bob sees him as a potential sale -- not to mention a job-saver. (The extent of Dave's willingness to help a guy out is phenomenal; but this is retail, after all -- not social work.) Soon, Humkin has expanded his gustatory horizons to include ice cream, and he's bunking at Bob's house -- much to Mimi's amusement.

Meanwhile, Marian starts finding passages written by Humkin (in block-letter crayon) mixed in with her own typewritten manuscript pages. She blames Jackson for forcing her to (unsuccessfully) kill off one of her creations, and confronts him at his home during a Christmas party -- with hilarious, socially-inappropriate results.

Suddenly, at the end of the movie, it begins to dawn on us how these characters are related to each other, and the real story behind the fictional construct reveals itself in a satisfyingly surprising way. What we've been led to believe was a quirky comedy ends on a touching, tragic note.

Lovely By Surprise is one of those films that succeeds better in retrospect (or on second viewing) than it does when one first experiences it. Which is good news, in terms of its release on DVD. Still ... we're left, at the end of things, with one troubling question:

What the Hell happens to Mopekey?

Order the DVD from Amazon, or put it in your Netflix queue.

Also releasing on DVD this week are Push, The Unborn and Knowing.