It is easy to compare Matt (Matt Barats), the woefully misguided hero of “Anchors Aweigh” to a number of disillusioned young men whose talent doesn’t measure up to what they feel the world owes to them that have graced the screen throughout the years, as TIFF Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky did in his introduction to the comedy, saying it reminded him of a warped version of “Inside Llewyn Davis.” For me, Matt’s predilection for documenting much of his life on a MiniDV cam was more reminiscent of the infamous Ricky Fitts in “American Beauty,” Wes Bentley’s high school-aged loner who came to believe observing a floating plastic bag in the wind was the height of epiphany in the human experience and never grew out of it as he was nearing his thirties.
Part of the gloriously queasy humor of “Anchors Aweigh” is the possibility that Barats actually was that guy at one point when he includes videos he made when he was 19 ruminating on the pearls of wisdom that could be inspired by a trip to the convenience store, but whether he always had the self-awareness or not, the “Cash Cow” writer/director/star certainly has the perspective now to see how ridiculous it is and channels it into a formidable cringe comedy. Often playing the long game for punchlines, Barats doesn’t only mine the archive he kept as a college student and his early twenties with such gems as auditioning for the Blue Man Group to create an origin story for this monster, but often beats a particularly gag to death so he can resurrect it later to gut-busting effect, having the additional benefit of feeling true to a character who can’t break a cycle of the reality he’s constructed for himself as an unsuccessful artist living in New York who nonetheless never seems to have all that much trouble paying the rent.
It’s the kind of privilege that leads Matt to casually say in an opening voiceover, “Yup, that’s Radiohead” underscoring his story as if it were one in a million film student projects reaching for borrowed profundity as he’s largely unburdened by financial concerns, which unfortunately allows all his attention to be consumed with his tenuous relationship with his girlfriend Megan (Serena Profaci), a “dimepiece” in his humble estimation who nonetheless drives him mad when her career as a stage actress appears to have momentum than his as a filmmaker. It proves incidental that she is the heiress to a fortune and is drop dead gorgeous when it seems like he’d be lucky to have a partner of any kind, but he can’t help but have his jealousy get the best of him and the break-up sends him reeling, letting his depression seep into the video project he’s working on and having to find a new place to live.
That Matt ends up at sea on a docked houseboat is the kind of strong metaphor that the artist in him can appreciate and feels he’s earned while conveniently ignoring that his life is going to shit and as he visits locations around New York City pining for the old days as part of his video and complaining about gentrification, it appears he’s the one hopelessly stuck in the past. Mentioning in the film’s wall-to-wall narration that he once wrote a dissertation on “Family Guy,” Matt the character’s search for depth is futile when he has no clue where to look, but Barats has this type of guy dead to rights and makes following him a constant pleasure, which is no small feat with how insufferable he is. Perhaps not everyone will find the joy in watching Matt and a roommate filming their reactions to “2 Girls 1 Cup” in a bit of youthful irresponsibility, only to see that any growth since then is largely illusory as he seems to keep making the same mistakes, but “Anchors Aweigh” is hardly a drag as it ruthlessly skewers a self-important sensibility that has long been cultivated by the movies and now gets a much needed corrective.
“Anchors Aweigh” will screen next at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles on September 30th at 10 pm at the Los Feliz 3.