True Bromance to screen at Philadelphia Independent Film Festival 5

Saturday, June 23^rd, 2012 5:15pm-7:00pm - Franklin Institute IMAX Theater

True Bromance is a unique and hilarious film, falling somewhere between the various realms of comedy, drama, documentary, and mockumentary.  It is a highly self-conscious film, and rightly so because of it’s subject, but what makes True Bromance stand out amongst many other films is it’s extremely reflexive nature.  The film places real people in fake situations, fake people in real situations, real people acting, people playing caricatures of themselves, and contains some who are completely unaware of the proverbial joke of authenticity running through the film. 

The film has a long and tortured production history, and it is frankly a miracle of the director and main actor’s focus and dedication that made the film come together.  It is also apparent that throughout the project, the film has become something quite different since it’s initial conception, and it is a great trait of the film to be so constantly changing and re-evaluating itself.  The through line of Devin Ratray attempting to find love with Condoleeza Rice holds everything together quite well, and Devin Ratray is at times absolutely brilliant, truly living the role to the point that it becomes very questionably how much he is acting and how much he is being.

The film is about love of all sorts, romantic, parental, brotherly, between friends, but it ultimately also becomes about so many other things, such as privacy, friendly advice, projection of love, rights to our own image, celebrity and it’s pitfalls, and towards the end it becomes a hilarious questioning of our own government and their responses to someone attempting to profess their love for Condi.   The various ways the film is constructed all work rather well, although the comic book interlays taken from The Hangover and the bromance subplot feel slightly added on after the fact.  But they work, and within the reappropriated media of Condi, and the back and forth between real and fake, the real significance of the film can be found.  The film is an example of the post-postmodern crisis we face in media today.  Ultimately, the film asks the question: what is truly real in our world of illusions, and what illusions in our world are as real as it gets?

- Jeff Curran for #Pi5