In The Puffy Chair with the Duplass Brothers

June 2, 2006 - 12:00am — GreenCineStaff

"That three-dollar film just changed everything."

Hailed by Ray Carney (Cassavetes on Cassavetes) as "one of the best American movies of the last ten years," The Puffy Chair is the first digital feature from the Louisiana-born Duplass Brothers. Siblings Jay, 33, (director, cameraman) and Mark, 29, first attracted considerable attention in indie circles with their Sundance shorts This is John (2003) and Scrapple (2004). Their most recent short, The Intervention (2005) went on to win the Silver Lion at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The complex and extremely funny Puffy Chair follows a commitment-phobic, down-on-his-luck rock promoter, Josh Sagers (Mark Duplass) crossing several states to deliver a giant purple Lazy-y Boy recliner for his dad's birthday. Travelling with him are his spaced out brother (Rhett Wilkens) and Mark Duplass's real-life fiancee (Kathryn Aselton).

Interviewing the Duplass Brothers is a little like tag-team conversation. Frequently Jay would finish the thought or sentence of Mark and vice versa. After spending much of our allotted time gossiping about Don Simpson and J.T. Leroy, we got down to discussing nervous breakdowns, the three-act structure and capturing the minutia of middle-class white people.