Writer-director Blake James Reid’s The Man Without Qualities takes My Dinner with Andre, mashes it with Sideways, then amplifies the insanity up to 11. If our story’s characters, Brian (Brian Belott) and John (John Maus), were Alfred Molina and Tom Waits, besides the picture being black-and-white, you’d almost believe it was some sort of frantic Jim Jarmusch vignette. That is because this short comedy begins with the meeting of two friends. What could go wrong?
“Brian sups up John like a starving man does soup.”
Well, regrettably for John, Brian is a tofu buddy. And tofu doesn’t really taste like anything. It absorbs the sauce it’s simmering in. This really singles out our intrepid pest Brian as the titular character. Soon enough, as John opens a dialogue with his friend without qualities, idle chatter slowly disintegrates into primal lunacy. Brian sups up John like a starving man does soup. Gluttonously devouring tone, vibe, style, likes, dislikes, voice, shirt, and tie.
John tries different approaches. He changes the focus; he changes direction; he changes the subject; he changes his outfit. All the while, Brian is, at each stage, on this charming restaurant version of Dante’s Inferno, irrepressible. Man, doesn’t know how to shut up! Something psychically linked the metaphorical bomb under this table, ticking away to John’s sanity. The million-dollar question on top of the table: How long will John allow Brian to go on till he snaps or succumbs?
The Man Without Qualities could simply register as basic, a casual conversation gone rotten or wrong. But beneath this spartan slice of cinema hangs an infuriating intensity that may or may not be boiling up a dainty dish of disaster. That’s not basic, that’s suspense. Hats off to all concerned with this tasty, tiny terror that shows the perils of an overly-aggressive, one-sided diatribe, whilst doing exactly what it says on the tin.
"…a dainty dish of disaster."
