‘The Puffy Chair’: the Duplass brothers’ quirky debut
Nearly two decades into their careers as filmmakers, the Duplass brothers have come a long way from their humble artistic origins. Jay and Mark Duplass are now known and loved for their movies Baghead, Cyrus, Jeff, Who Lives and Home and The Do-Deca-Pentathalon, earning widespread critical acclaim for their quirky humour.
Things began for the Duplass brothers, though, with the 2005 mumblecore road movie The Puffy Chair, in which Mark Duplass starred alongside Katie Astelton and Rhett Wilkins. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and later screening at South by Southwest, eventually The Puffy Chair was picked up by Netflix and Roadside Attractions.
The Puffy Chair follows the relationships between a wide range of different people, from mothers and fathers to brothers and friends. At its core, the film focuses on Josh, a young man who finds a replica of a lounge chair on eBay that his father used to sit on many years ago. He convinces his girlfriend and brother to accompany him on a road trip to collect the chair and then deliver it to his father as a birthday present.
Josh’s life is in an admittedly messy state when the movie begins, having largely failed in his ambitions as a musician and his plan B as a booking agent. He believes that a minor victory may be achieved in gifting his father the titular chair, but in taking to the road with Emily and Rhett, the kind of mumblecore conversations known in the sub-genre, expose the difficulties and nuances of interpersonal relationships in the most patiently hilarious and moving of ways.
During an interview with IndieWire, the Duplass’ once spoke of the difficulties of getting the film made and then actually getting to see it via a distribution deal. Jay Duplass noted that the hardest thing about The Puffy Chair was “not having stars” in the movie, which meant that most prospective buyers of the film “didn’t know how to market it”.
According to Mark Duplass, The Puffy Chair only got made because the brothers’ parents lent them $15,000. Since the budget was pretty tight, the ambitious young filmmaking duo had to convince a series of actors to take on a role for just $100 per day, with much improvisation expected of them in the process.
Mark Duplass said that “developing” the film was “easy” after the pair “just went for it”, but the issue came when it came time to actually find a buyer for The Puffy Chair. “Distribution was a long road,” he said. “It took a year to sell the film. Everyone loved it, but apparently, it’s a little difficult to market an indie film with no recognisable ‘stars’.”
Eventually, after airing at the Sundance Film Festival, Netflix and Roadside Attractions acquired The Puffy Chair, which itself won the Audience Award at South by Southwest. All Jay Duplass wanted to do was make movies like his hero John Cassavetes, to “make films like that but funny”, which he undoubtedly had the opportunity to do.
While some of the Duplass brothers’ more recent movies have taken the limelight when it comes to their career, one must go back to the mid-2000s to find the moment at which it all began for them, and The Puffy Chair is a wonderful little film that set the duo on the path to stardom.
