85 Minutes/2010/Color/Stereo/USA
A masterpiece of modern independent filmmaking, Frank V. Ross’s Audrey the Trainwreck follows two 30-something, working-class Chicagoans who meet through an online dating service. Ron (Anthony Baker) is an ATM-parts purchaser who hates his job, yet has allowed it to rule over his life through unquestioning acceptance. He tries to follow a strict daily routine, but his attempts are often thwarted through a series of accidents and disruptions that feed his perpetually sour mood. When he meets Stacy (Alexi Wasser), a delivery woman for a parcel service, they bond over a shared dissatisfaction with their present situations while occupying vastly different perspectives on how to approach the future.
Featuring a score by legendary jazz pianist John Medeski, cinematography by David Lowery (A Ghost Story), and supporting performances from Nick Offerman and Joe Swanberg, Audrey the Trainwreck shows the freewheeling style Ross developed in his early films reaching new levels of complexity, while hinting toward the melancholic restraint of his subsequent work.
“[A] scruffy, tender but very funny romance… Ross is something of an indie Robert Altman, with his huge cast of characters and plaited strands of dialogue, and he has a sharp and comic eye for intimacy, domesticity, and practicality.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Unjustly underbuzzed… Ordinary life’s manic seesaw between misery and levity is Ross’s recurring subject… [An] incisive portrait of the suburban working-class.” – Karina Longworth, The Village Voice
