The story of Jimmy Alfredo begins when an unsettled young man named Tim (Jacob Nowe) leaves his 18th birthday party to seek solitude in the woods, where he encounters a puckish character named Jimmy Alfredo (Joseph Faulk). Tim is dissatisfied with his life and family and struggling to find his way. Jimmy offers him a life of freedom, movement, and disruption. Tim answers the call, and they embark on a Kerouac-style road trip, enhanced by the generous use of mind-altering drugs.
The destination of their odyssey is to meet up with the devil, where Jimmy will account for a promise he made to return a book. As they couch-surf across the land, Jimmy re-tells the Faustian tale at parties about how the Prince of Darkness asked him to read Canterbury Tales. Jimmy is a near-mythical figure among the people who know him. He’s dark and charismatic. He also robs people to keep the cash flow positive. Think Bundy or Manson.
Tim is the naive innocent. He’s a disaffected loner but not jaded, and his exposure to Jimmy’s culture of drugs and chaos, bumping along the bottom of the societal barrel, is a shock to the system. Tim thinks he’s much darker than he actually is, but he discovers his moral compass. Jimmy seems to be devoid of any sense of responsibility whatsoever. In Jimmy, Tim sees the reality of what it means to be truly dissociated from consequences.
“A young man encounters a puckish character named Jimmy Alfredo in the woods…”
When things go wrong at a party and one of Jimmy’s crowd, a woman called Lucid Lucy (Katie Guarnaccia), overdoses, Jimmy flees the scene. Lucy winds up dead. Tim is guided to the basement of another man at the party and told he can stay as long as he needs to. Soon, it becomes clear that Jimmy can’t be found but that he will find you if he’s so inclined, and soon he wanders up to Tim in a forest where he’s escaped in despair over once again having no direction.
Not everyone Tim meets is a rogue and a narcissist. Along the way, he makes a real connection with Cataract-Sally (Carly Bruno), who is so named because her unwillingness to judge people means “she sees nothing.” Sally is a genuine soul who cares deeply for the people around her and anchors Tim in his worst moments. The finale brings more shocks and insanity to Tim as the journey goes to wildly unexpected places. It’s also telling that Jimmy would rather face down the devil than to read a book. There’s a statement. Ultimately, Tim learns, and we are reminded, that the results of chaos are incredibly predictable. Unstructured free spirits are the most boring people in the room if you’re sober. That thrill is short-lived.
For the micro-budget spent on Jimmy Alfredo, the production quality, overall narrative, and acting performances are rock solid. Jacob Nowe, as Tim, perfectly captures a sense of the innocent soul first seeing the big bad world and having to decide whether to go along or stand his moral ground. The novice camera work is augmented by extreme bouts of trippy psychedelic visual distortions. The film opens with a warning about the reality-twisting interludes to anyone watching while already altered, which would arguably enhance the experience. On the other hand, maybe don’t bother, as Jimmy Alfredo is a deliberately trippy film that could save you money on psychotropic drugs.
"…a deliberately trippy film..."
