Colin Burgess in the comedy “Generation Z” by Ryan Martin Brown

Calling writer-director Ryan Martin Brown’s feature debut “is probably an exaggeration.” Free time, “a generation-defining film.” Shot over 10 days with a solid of relatively unknowns, the micro-budget comedy went roughly unnoticed, premiering at several mid-tier festivals and receiving limited releases in select U.S. cities. (Currently plays at Quad in New York and Landmark Westwood in Los Angeles)

And yet, there’s something very timely about this cleverly crafted and sometimes funny tale of Gen Z malaise, which follows a disgruntled twenty-something office employee who quits his job to affix the great post-pandemic churn, only to appreciate that no idea what to do with yourself when work is over. Clocking in at 78 minutes, the film is the sort of seedy New York indie that we see less and fewer of nowadays, at a time when independent cinema itself appears to be in grave danger.

Over ten years ago it really works like Free time they were pennies. Starting in the mid-aughts, movies resembling Andrzej Bujalski Mutual recognitionAaron Katz A quiet cityLena Dunham Small Furniture and Alex Ross Perry Color Wheel it was at the heart of New York’s hipster-populated film scene, which stretched from downtown Manhattan to Park Slope. But then rents exploded during the Bloomberg era, and emerging artists were priced out of the city, and plenty of others left the city during a protracted and devastating pandemic from which New York has yet to completely get well, either economically or mentally.

It’s in the post-pandemic period that Martin Brown begins a shaggy dog ​​story that falls somewhere between early Woody Allen and just a few of the mumblecore movies mentioned above. Indeed, due to its solid of diverse Brooklyn characters—a lot of them played in stand-up and improv comics—and its nonstop passive-aggressive atmosphere, Free time could also be a part of a brand new movement that is probably best described as “vocal core fry.” Meanwhile, the film’s narcissistic antihero, Drew (winningly played by Colin Burgess, the video editor on Hollywood reporter), he looks like a modern-day Groucho Marx, except with wire-rimmed glasses and a number of ironic vintage T-shirts tucked into jeans which can be at all times a size too short.

Perpetually dissatisfied, Drew takes on a soul-sucking data entry job that, in the film’s opening scene, ends with him resigning either out of spite or because he did not negotiate a promotion together with his tough boss (James Webb). When he returns to his Brooklyn townhouse, Drew proudly tells his roommate (Rajat Suresh) – who spends his days glued to his laptop as a paid clickbait author – that he finally understands what capitalism is all about and is now prepared for a lifetime of freedom from senseless wage slavery.

But Drew has few friends, let alone any romantic partners, so he doesn’t do much after quitting smoking except lie in bed all day and watch the same movie, then get high on food and go to bars on his own. At best, he hopes to pursue a side profession as a keyboardist in an area band, but when he shows up for rehearsal after a protracted hiatus, he learns that the lead singer has modified genre to country.

The musical sequences are a few of the funniest in the film and are stuffed with awkward tension that builds as Drew begins to appreciate that the band doesn’t want him around anymore. His other encounters don’t go any higher, whether at a celebration where he’s clearly not welcome – in a memorable shot, he stands in the kitchen with two other guys looking at their phones – or at his old job, where he unsuccessfully tries to get rehired under a false name.

It’s hard to support a man who is totally cocky and completely unable to read the signals everyone seems to be sending him, and yet Drew becomes a hero in his own right in a hilarious turn of events (not price spoilers here) that speaks volumes about the crisis he finds himself in America is currently happening.

Although it is not entirely satire, Free time offers a sly commentary on a generation – in this particular case white, college-educated – that refuses to fulfill the uncompromising financial goals of previous generations, but doesn’t really know what else to pursue while struggling to afford a way of life that has change into dearer than ever before.

It’s no big surprise that Drew finally ends up trying to avoid wasting his own skin, and like several New Yorker, he’ll do whatever he can to survive. What’s fascinating about Martin Brown’s closely observed and entertaining debut is its twist on the famous Big Apple adage that if you happen to could make it there, you possibly can make it anywhere: What does that even mean if making it means working for a living? but still miserable and comparatively broke?

Unlike Woody Allen’s ode to his hometown, Manhattanthere are not any fireworks at the starting Free time and there is no sad, sprawling romance at the end, but quite an acknowledgment that joining in the every day grind could also be the best the city has to supply right away.