{"id":207,"date":"2010-01-07T15:55:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T20:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=207"},"modified":"2021-08-26T10:18:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:18:39","slug":"harmony-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/07\/harmony-and-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Harmony and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s sometimes hard to understand why some mediocre films get all the buzz, and some great ones don\u2019t. For the life of me, I can\u2019t explain why Bob Byington\u2019s Harmony and Me<\/em> (2009) received its theatrical run at the Museum of Modern Art rather than a commercial theater, and to my knowledge, still hasn\u2019t as yet found a distributor. Yeah, life ain\u2019t fair \u2013 of course, I know that. Yet if I were to pick one indie film of the past year that I would jump at the chance to see over and over again, it would be Harmony and Me<\/em>, a film in which every single scene manages to work, while being woven into an intricate medley of idiosyncratic humor. And I say this as someone who generally shuns comedies for the simple reason that most of them aren\u2019t very funny.<\/p>\n

Variety<\/em><\/a>, in a favorable review, called it \u201ca mumblecore film without the mumble.\u201d That sounds a bit like calling something a chocolate bar without chocolate or a milk shake without milk, so I\u2019m not exactly sure what it means. In any case, like the Variety<\/em> reviewer, other people might also assume this film to be another example of mumblecore. After all, Harmony and Me<\/em> features Justin Rice, the talented front man of the Brooklyn band Bishop Allen<\/a>, who was the lead actor in Andrew Bujalski\u2019s Mutual Appreciation<\/em>, (and who, like Benjamin Button, seems to grow younger and younger with each passing year). The film is also set in Austin, Texas, edited by Frank Ross, and is even about relationships involving twentysomethings.<\/p>\n

Byington, however, has tried to distance himself from mumblecore. When asked how he felt about the association, Byington told Karina Longworth in New York Magazine<\/em><\/a>, \u201cI like the humor in Broadcast News<\/em> more than, say . . . I don’t know how to say more without seeming like I’m being dismissive of other movies. I’m very interested in watching how some of the mumblecore directors continue. I certainly don’t consider myself one of them. I understand the connection, but the movie and I are interested in other things.\u201d In other words, Byington is politely suggesting that his real interests lie in comedy.<\/p>\n

What distinguishes Harmony and Me<\/em> is Byington\u2019s absolute command of comic timing, which I suspect is also the result of careful scripting. One of my favorite scenes in Mutual Appreciation<\/em> is the one where a drunken Alan (played by Rice) stumbles into party and the three women in wigs convince him to dress in drag. Rice\u2019s comic timing stands out in that particular scene, but then again he\u2019s playing a rock-musician character who at least bears some resemblance to himself. Yet I didn\u2019t find this quality at all evident in Jonathan Blitstein\u2019s Let Them Chirp Awhile<\/em>, in which Rice was cast as a Woody Allen wannabe.<\/p>\n

After seeing Harmony and Me<\/em>, I\u2019m convinced that Byington deserves much of the credit for Rice\u2019s outstanding performance here, in which his deadpan delivery and reactions are totally spot on. He\u2019s not playing himself, but a hapless loser with a broken heart, who can\u2019t seem to get past it. As Byington puts it in the same interview, \u201cIn Harmony<\/em>, it’s like Justin’s walking around with a broken record, asking people to listen to it. \u2018Please listen to my broken record.\u2019 Our worst nightmare is having to listen to our friends tell us about their stupid breakup. There is a way to make that situation funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harmony and Me<\/em> begins with a voiceover quote from the lyrics of a Madonna song. Harmony says, \u201cSomething in your eyes is making such a fool of me.\u201d It takes all of eight shots to move from the romantic bliss of Harmony and his girlfriend Jessica (Kristen Tucker, the film\u2019s producer) to Harmony lying on a couch. We assume he\u2019s in a therapy session. Harmony says, \u201cI can\u2019t seem to . . . I walk around with this idea that I want and can\u2019t be happy without some version of, I don\u2019t know, possessing her? Of having her love me in a way she\u2019s not even wired for, not even set up to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the camera holds on Harmony muttering to himself, a voice asks, \u201cCan I help you?\u201d Byington cuts to a wide shot and the back of a proprietor and what appears to be an empty furniture store. The film cuts to black. Justin sits talking on a cell phone to one of Jessica\u2019s friends, who claims that Jessica describes him as a loser. The revelation is painful. We learn in the next scene \u2013 once again involving a cell phone conversation with the same person \u2013 that Jessica had already started grieving over the loss while still in the relationship, which has given her a big head start over poor Harmony.<\/p>\n

As a form of therapy, Harmony begins taking piano lessons. In voiceover, he suggests, \u201cLately, the way I shake people\u2019s hands feels spasmodic . . . like I have a hand buzzer. I can\u2019t find any rhythm.\u201d What follows is a series of episodic skits. We see him at work, with his mother (Margie Beegle) and his impish younger brother, Wes (Bishop Allen bassist, Keith Poulson). Brad (Don Herminghaus), his boss at the tech company where he works, has only a day to live and his mother turns out to have lung cancer, but Harmony is too fixated on his own broken heart for these things to register.<\/p>\n

Harmony\u2019s tries to get sympathy from his family, but his mother suggests that next time he should \u201cfind one that can move her arms and legs,\u201d and Wes can only muster snide remarks. After a family tennis match, Harmony concludes, \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure I grew up with limited access to mental health. My older brother, who was supposed to be a mentor in lieu of our deceased father was deficient. Suffice it to say that he didn\u2019t pick up the slack.\u201d His older brother Jim (Bob Byington) is the type who insists that Harmony remove his shoes before entering his house. He\u2019s about to get married, and, at least according to Harmony, has just bought the wrong-colored tan suit.<\/p>\n

Harmony\u2019s friends are no more sympathetic or understanding than his family. Carlos (Kevin Corrigan) calls Jessica \u201cdull\u201d and won\u2019t admit she\u2019s pretty. Another, Prince Valiant\u00a0(Nick Holden), puts his arm around Harmony and suggests that his uptight response is homophobic. Harmony insists that it\u2019s a personal-space issue, while his friend claims it\u2019s cultural. To be more cruel, the friend rates Jessica only an 8 on a 10-scale. Still another one, Mean Man Mike (filmmaker Alex Karpovsky) who\u2019s unhappily married to a woman named Milius (Baseera Khan), takes Harmony to a Chinese acupuncturist. After the friend uses a \u201cstagnant pond\u201d metaphor to describe his problem, Harmony explains to the acupuncturist, \u201cShe broke my heart, but she\u2019s still at it. She hasn\u2019t finished the job. She\u2019s breaking my heart.\u201d He continues, \u201cMy heart is a snack. She’s like a bear with a fish in its paw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad seems to recuperate miraculously. He ridicules the heart-shaped locket containing Jessica\u2019s picture that Harmony wears around his neck, and also suggest to a female employee that he\u2019s only interested in underage women. When Harmony tells Mean Man Mike that his boss implied that his chain and locket\u00a0 made him look gay, the friend concurs that you only see such jewelry on either black people or gay people. When Harmony runs into Jessica on an elevator, she comments on the fact that his shirt and sweater and shoes match, and then laughs and remarks, \u201cIt\u2019s cute.\u201d Harmony demands his sweatshirt back, while she reminds him he still has her yoga mat. He also runs into a neighbor, Natasha (Allison Latta), who\u2019s obsessed with her boobs and seems to have a crush on him.<\/p>\n

Music becomes a means for Harmony to work out his emotional turmoil and also communicate with his friends, including Mean Man Mike and Carlos. The piano teacher (Jerm Pollet) claims, \u201cNo one wins in love.\u201d He realizes his wife is no longer interested in him, but a lawyer who happens to make a lot more money. To him, it\u2019s not personal, but attributable to a change in taste \u2013 like preferring cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e to crab cakes.<\/p>\n

One of the funniest and most uplifting scenes occurs at Jim\u2019s wedding, where Harmony is brought up by the band to sing, while the Wedding Singer (Austin musician Bob Schneider<\/a>) checks out the bride, who\u2019s six-months pregnant, and Wes munches on cake. Harmony wanders down to where the Wedding Singer is practicing a song on the piano and gets tutored in how to play it. This is intercut with the Wedding Singer who leads the bride onto the dance floor and sings an exuberant rendition of \u201cChanging Your Mind\u201d<\/a> to her on bended knee, with his head pressed against her extended belly. Embarrassed, she looks over, and the ensuing camera movement over to Jim and family at the table is as hilarious as you might expect.<\/p>\n

As the movie progresses, Jessica takes up with the boss\u2019s son Matt (Pat Healy), whom Harmony regards as \u201cpretty clearly an imbecile.\u201d Harmony goes bowling on his birthday with Matt and Brad, which ends disastrously. Harmony attends Brad\u2019s funeral, where he delivers a eulogy that gets him fired, and has an affair with Natasha that turns out badly, and references There\u2019s Something About Mary<\/em> (a film I could never watch twice). After she complains that the sex was bad while standing on the balcony in her undies, Harmony responds from the parking lot, \u201cAre you sure you shouldn\u2019t just be thankful that I don\u2019t murder you?\u201d As he walks away, he tries to turn his words into lyrics for a song.<\/p>\n

When Harmony’s forced to borrow money from Jim, his brother suggests he values his tabby cat far more than him. Harmony later returns home to find Jessica who\u2019s returning his sweatshirt and wants her yoga mat. When Harmony asks her inside, she suggests that he\u2019s like a character in a movie that you don\u2019t care about, and, after a deep breath, tells him, \u201cI just know that I\u2019m not interested in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harmony burns Jessica\u2019s pink yoga mat. In a self-destructive gesture \u2013 the idea stems from an incident involving Natasha and her dog \u2013 Harmony ends up in the hospital, where he spends a week in a coma. It\u2019s here that Byington\u2019s mosaic-like structure becomes fully evident. Most directors would try to pare down the number of characters, especially in such a sequence, but Byington creates a series of short jokes involving Harmony\u2019s mother and Wes, and various friends who turn up to visit Harmony there.<\/p>\n

Once Harmony wakes up from his coma and Jessica finally shows up, everyone clears out of the room. After she leaves, everyone returns to his bedside and Harmony, a white bandage still wrapped around his head, ends up playing the song he\u2019s been working on for the entire film, called \u201cThe Finishing Touches.\u201d Aren\u2019t broken hearts the staple of most pop songs? Byington\u2019s brilliance is the clever way he works music seamlessly into the film, transforming Harmony\u2019s broken record into a brand new song.<\/p>\n

Harmony and Me<\/em> will play at the Wisconsin Film Festival (April 15-18) this spring. You can also check out the film\u2019s Web site<\/a> for other screenings. Like most comedies, it\u2019s much funnier to see it with an audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s sometimes hard to understand why some mediocre films get all the buzz, and some great ones don\u2019t. For the life of me, I can\u2019t explain why Bob Byington\u2019s Harmony and Me (2009) received its theatrical run at the MuseumRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4320,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/4320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}