Farley-within-Farley

LOCAL LEGENDS (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I've seen so many variations on the postmodernist making of-film-within-film approach that it is hard to fathom how many I've actually seen. The best ones that come mind are: Robert Altman's "The Player," the definitive Hollywood satire, and a tie between 1994's forgotten "My Life's in Turnaround" and 1995's exceedingly funny "Living in Oblivion" for low-budget filmmaking scenarios. I'll also throw in the 1992 sleeper "Mistress" for most acute observation of the trials and tribulations of being a Hollywood screenwriter. "Local Legends" is a joke-within-a-joke comedy about the making of a low-budget film as we are watching it, with the director serving as narrator about works and what is flawed. I may have seen variations on this before but Matt Farley has made a more memorable, bouncy and humorous take on it.

Farley plays himself, the Manchester, New Hampshire film director/songwriter/stand-up comedian who is happy with his station in life. He works long shifts at an elderly retirement home, though the shot of himself in bed awakened by an elderly man needing his diaper changed was shot in someone's basement (as Farley confesses in the spot-on narration). His live acts with a keyboard attracts the attention of a female fan named Abby (Sharon Scalzo - an actress whom I hope has a lead role in a future Farley film) who is hoping for a relationship beyond being hired by Matt as a basketball statistician (You have to see it to believe it)! She also claims to be a Billy Joel fan (she only owns his greatest hits CD's)  and supposedly has boyfriend troubles that lead her to stay in the shower stall for 45 minutes in Matt's own apartment!

"Local Legends" is an amalgam of fiction and documentary with Farley providing sharp wit in his commentary on what we see (at one point, he imagines himself as a producer who argues with Matt about artistic integrity). Some of the straight-faced commentary will remind one of Matt's film heroes, Woody Allen, though Matt makes it all his own. Matt's songs sell about 2 dollars each a year on iTunes so he decides to write and sing 10,000 more a year, and provides his phone number so you can call him and have a song written about you! Meanwhile he is agitated by Abby who criticizes his films like "Freaky Farley" (which, as a side note, she appeared in along with his other films) and insists on inviting herself to his apartment. A big reunion with Matt's Moes Haven band (one of several hundred bands) falls through and instead he performs some routines at a live show in someone's basement. Sometimes Matt leaves CD's and DVD's in areas around town for people to find (something the real Matt actually does). Sometimes a curiously creepy individual drives by and asks to give Matt a ride. Sometimes a person picks up a DVD and confronts Matt at his office and offers petty criticisms. Even Matt's own family feels he should elevate his filmmaking habits and make a career out of it by submitting his work to a film festival (as if he hadn't thought of it).

"Local Legends" features the Matt Farley and Charles Roxburgh repertory of actors in various different roles (Roxburgh's directorial duties are left to Farley this time), and it is great fun to watch real, unglamorous people engaged by small-town troubles such as fractured relationships, making movies with local people and trying to stage live shows. Matt learns to take it easy, to let go of any undue pressure on himself and be free.  His life is not glamorous but it is also not stressful. All he needs to make his day is a coffee milk, walk for eight miles and accept fan requests for new songs (and there is a pretty blonde he has got his eye on played by Matt's actual wife, Elizabeth M. Peterson). These elements of innocence mark Farley's films and this "Local Legends" is a delectable, often hilarious new chapter in the annals of low-budget films about making low-budget films. An original treat.