It’s one thing to make an independent film. Plenty of people have rustled up a screenplay, a camera, a ragtag group of actors and a dream. Those folks went without shooting permits, vast craft service tables, and the endless financial resources of a major film studio. They ignored spouses, family, and friends polluting their heads with advice to “be practical.” They got out there, and goddammit, they made their movie. 

Unfortunately, you know what happens to a lot of those people and their movies afterwards? Nothing. Once they have a completed motion picture, they need to put it in the hands of a studio or streaming service, and those entities are often uninterested in a plucky filmmaker off the street. The next option might be to enter their project in the film festival circuit, and hope that someone licenses their film, purchases it, or provides distribution. Unfortunately, again, most of the time that won’t happen.

So then what? For those people, one of two things will happen. The first is they’ll go back to their lives, their jobs, their spouses and families, and the movie they made will remain in the rearview mirror. The second is that they become addicted. A door has opened for them, and they’re eager to sprint through it and make more movies…somehow. That’s what My Movie Starring Paul Dano is about, and it’s made by a filmmaker who also fully inhabits that world.

We’re introduced to Herman (Christopher Michael Jones), an ambitious indie director living a real good news/bad news kind of life. The good news is that he’s actually made movies! The bad news is that they’re the kind of movies that never get screened in theaters. To him, it feels as if his creative journey has come to the end of the road.

Then, things change abruptly, and all because of a dream. As Herman slumbers, he dreams that the actor Paul Dano* appears before him. Or, rather, the Ghost of Paul Dano (Michael Dennis Duggan).** The Ghost is aware of Herman’s self-published comic book, Bear Naked Amazonians from Mars, and he gives Herman a weirdly specific command. It is Herman’s destiny to adapt Bear Naked Amazonians from Mars, and the only actor with the necessary gravitas to star in a prestige film of this magnitude is, naturally, Paul Dano.

What, Herman is supposed to argue with dream logic? Of course not! Convinced that the real Paul Dano has already said yes to Herman’s movie, he swings into action and assembles his team, such as they are. A few of them are:

• His mother Molly (Holly Rockwell), who fervently believes she’s still a dewy ingenue.
• Tanya (Julia Hapney), Herman’s cinematographer and ex who’s close to being done with all of Herman’s nonsense.
• Martin (Turen Robinson), Herman’s producer*** who successfully manages to produce nothing.
• Roxy (Chelsea Newman), a former almost-porn star determined to play the lead using a bafflingly strange accent.
• Piper (Birdie), a naive young woman from Utah in search of Tanya, her “egg Mom.”
• Gor (Hovhannes Babakhanyan), a part time boom-mike operator and full time guru.
• Feivel (Jonathan Mankuta), the money man determined to fund the film by scamming:
• Pio (Lee Rothstein), Herman’s uncle, who is unhealthily obsessed with “Wheel of Fortune.”

This group, plus other weirdos and degenerates, must band together to realize Herman’s dream. Can they do so without engaging in messy affairs, massive incompetence, and borderline criminal behavior? Probably not.

I reviewed Joe Bartone’s previous film Everything Will Be Fine in The End a few years ago. I didn’t like it, but I liked the filmmaking behind it. While the previous film was filled with grimy chaos, My Movie Starring Paul Dano is sunnier, funnier, and sincere in its love for indie film. Bartone has made a semi-mockumentary that moves at a brisk pace. While a lot of films about filmmaking tend to be cynical and arch, this film is unapologetically sweet-natured toward its cast of oddballs and what it takes to get a movie made, whether or not the end result is good. Bartone knows what he’s talking about, as he’s been a director, screenwriter, producer, composer, sound designer, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he built a set or two. This world is innately familiar to him, and you can feel it throughout his film.

The screenplay by Bartone, Turen Robinson, and Joe Rubenstein, came from a frustration familiar to anyone in the indie world, the idea that independent films can’t be made without a name actor attached. It’s true that a good chunk of the gags are very inside baseball, and if you’re someone part of the indie film world, you’ll chuckle in recognition. Beyond the gags, the script shows us a skewed version of the creative process. We follow Herman through writing the script, casting, costumes, and much more. 

The cast is game to jump in, feet first, to any nonsense the film cooks up for them. Everyone is great fun, and the entire cast is having a ball. As Herman, Christopher Michael Jones has a tricky balancing act as a performer. He needs to be weird enough to portray a mad dreamer, while also being the “normal” center for the galaxy of truly strange people to orbit. He’s successful, and he turns in a likable performance as the lead. Holly Rockwell goes fearlessly over the top, and some of her scenes with Jones begin as amusing, progress to being disturbing, then come all the way back around to being funny. On the other side of the performance spectrum is Julia Hapney as Tanya. She’s amusingly deadpan, and her Tanya isn’t apathetic, she’s simply exhausted by the cacophony around her.

Making an independent film is hard. To make more, to keep going after your first one, takes a certain kind of loopy delusion disguised as confidence. My Movie Starring Paul Dano is a celebration of that mindset. It’s for everyone who seriously said,  whether it was once or repeatedly, “I’m going to make a movie.”

*One of the incredible running jokes in this film is the idea that Paul Dano is an A-list actor. Look, it’s true that he’s one of the best character actors we’ve got. But nobody saw the trailer for The Batman and said, “Wait…the Paul Dano is playing The Riddler? Now I gotta see that!”

**Another incredible joke is that the Ghost of Paul Dano looks and sounds nothing like him. 

***Okay, the best joke in the movie is Martin’s line, “I’ll tell you what a producer does. I say no, you can’t have that.”

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.