“Thirty is the new 20,” someone quips in Chris Mason Johnson’s tight debut feature about a group of college friends who stay close even as they move to New York City and near the 30-year-old milestone.
And, one could snark, “The New Twenty” is the new “Friends.”
Only the ensemble drama isn’t played for laughs, and this clique of almost-30-somethings are gay and straight. At least two of them are dedicated to work.
If this group were tossed, say, into an apartment in Seattle or a rented house in Austin and shot on a less- than-low budget, then the “The New Twenty” would be another example of the navel-gazing genre called “mumble-core.”
Instead, production values and David Tumblety’s camera work provide a sleek look in keeping with the up-and-comer milieu of Andrew (Ryan Locke) and Julie (Nicole Bilderback), who are investment bankers.
She’s doing very well. He’s beginning to hate the work. When he meets venture capitalist Louie, Andrew sees a chance to be his own boss — and maybe employ some of his friends.
A Denver Film Society Cinema Q offering, “The New Twenty” doesn’t over explain or judge its characters’ sexual identities (gay or straight) or some of their more destructive choices.
Ben is a slightly slumpy guy trying to hook up on the Internet. Colin Fickes makes Ben a nice mix of smart and needy.
Julie’s younger brother Tony (Andrew Wei Lin) shares an apartment with Felix (Thomas Sadoski). Stylish and a little reserved, Tony rounds out the circle of friends.
With Ben and Andy you get two vastly different — equally authentic — gay men.
The characters can be selfish, which may prove a turn-off to audiences hankering for likability. They certainly work as recognizable; for instance, nothing shouts “narcissist” quite like the hermetically sealed relationship Felix starts up with Lucy (Cordelia Reynolds).
Yet the director and co-writer Ishmael Chawla never make their characters venal. For something approaching malevolent, there’s Louie, played with testosterone-stoked energy by Terry Serpico.
In order to work with Louie, Andrew ignores initial impressions. We never quite do — though the filmmakers and Serpico offer fine proof of the seductive pull of the power-driven.
Louie’s one of two catalysts who throw the group’s dynamic. The other is Robert (Bill Sage) who becomes tentatively involved with Tony.
Things will spin slowly, surely out of control. Bonds will be challenged as each character wrestles with the weight of the new feeling of not being 20 at all.
Directed by Chris Mason Johnson; written by Johnson and Ishmael Chawla; photography by David Tumblety; starring Colin Fickes, Nicole Bilderback, Thomas Sadoski, Ryan Locke, Andrew Wei Lin, Ryan Templeton, Not rated. 92 minutes. Opens today at the Starz FilmCenter.
