\u201cBaltimorons\u201d<\/a> is one of those little movies you might stumble across and be surprised that it hooks you. It does so despite \u2014 or more likely because \u2014 of its complete lack of flashiness or any self-evident attempt to \u201chook you.\u201d Instead, it manages that simply with low-key charm and a warm, unpretentious humanity.<\/p>\nDirector Jay Duplass\u2019 film is about a young Baltimore man in recovery for two things. Cliff (Michael Strassner) has quit both drinking and improv comedy. If \u201cyes, and\u201d had been his personal mantra, he\u2019s now, after a failed suicide attempt seen in the movie\u2019s first moments, pledged to give up both for his girlfriend, Brittany (Olivia Luccardi).<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t take us long to grasp that this state of affairs is trying for Cliff, a gregarious and easygoing guy, but an aimless one. The alcohol isn\u2019t so much the problem, though. More difficult is going cold turkey on riffing his way through life.<\/p>\n
On Christmas Eve, while Cliff is heading to Brittany\u2019s family home for a holiday celebration, he trips and chips his tooth. With most dentist offices closed, he ends up at the door of Didi (Liz Larsen). Their interactions are, at first, awkward. Cliff is informal and prying; Didi, many years his senior, is more official. As a partner for Cliff\u2019s eager conversation, Didi, a woman with a defeated, just-getting-through-the-day, middle-aged melancholy, would seem about the least genial match.<\/p>\n
But each gets little windows into the other\u2019s life. Didi, divorced, learns her daughter won\u2019t be with her that evening \u2014 a phone call overheard by Cliff. And when the dental work is done, Cliff realizes his car has been towed. Didi reluctantly offers a ride, and, from there, the two end up on an unlikely Christmas Eve odyssey together, without the supernatural qualities of Dickens but nevertheless with ghosts from the past along the way, such as Didi\u2019s ex-husband and Cliff\u2019s former improv troupe (named The Baltimorons).<\/p>\n
\u201cRom-com\u201d or \u201cMay-December romance\u201d would be reasonable labels to put on Duplass\u2019 film, written by him and Strassner. But part of the freewheeling charm of the film is that it doesn\u2019t try to define the relationship that evolves during its lightly paced night. These are just a couple of people (both actors are wonderfully natural) a bit disappointed by life, who find each other at the right time.<\/p>\n
Jay Duplass and his brother, Mark Duplass (a producer here), first made their mark in the early \u201800s with micro-budget comedies like \u201cThe Puffy Chair.\u201d \u201cThe Baltimorons,\u201d though, doesn\u2019t feel like it’s trying to shake up the movie industry. Like its characters, it’s just trying to get by, and maybe find a little companionship along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Baltimorons,\u201d an Independent Film Company release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language. Running time: 100 minutes. Three stars out of four.<\/p>\n
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are all kinds of movies that are either endangered or practically extinct. The big-studio comedy. The original musical. But the sweet and shaggy regular-people movie \u2014 more a province of the 1970s, always one that required a little hunting down \u2014 is a particularly rare breed. \u201cBaltimorons\u201d is one of those little movies you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1998841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[362735,362733,362732,362734],"class_list":["post-1998840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-failed-suicide-attempt","tag-improv-comedy","tag-jay-duplass","tag-michael-strassner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/In-The-Baltimorons-emergency-dental-work-prompts-an-unlikely-rom-com.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1998840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1998841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1998840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1998840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1998840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}