"Loafers" is an Inspiring Ode to Early Mumblecore

The Chicago Critics Film Festival was held this year at its venue of choice, The Music Box in Wrigleyville, and premiered some of this year’s most anticipated films from major filmmakers like Gregg Araki, Olivia Wilde, John Carney, and Joe Swanberg. Amidst all of the major releases is indie darling, Loafers, which serves a moving ode to the films that inspired it, while serving as a clear stepping stone into the individual style of the team involved. 

Writer, director, and co-editor Zach Schnitzer stars in the film as Isaac, a young man navigating the uncertainty of post-grad life alongside his roommate, friends in town, and a friend from out of town whose presence starts to bring some more repressed feelings to the surface. The team behind Loafers has made one thing abundantly clear: their film is the absolute epitome of DIY filmmaking. Made for roughly 6,000 dollars over the course of 11 days in Chicago with a small crew of local artists who all wore multiple hats throughout the process, the film loudly reminds any aspiring artist out there that there truly is no excuse anymore. It’s one thing to hear Steven Spielberg say it at a sold out Q&A at the TCL Chinese, but it’s an entirely different thing to see it come to fruition by a team of filmmakers that seem refreshingly allergic to gatekeeping their processes. 

Like many films of its type, Loafers doesn’t necessarily follow your traditional plot, or story structure. It’s far more concerned with presenting authentic characters, and allowing their relationships to naturally progress throughout the runtime. And for the most part, it succeeds. While certain characters are certainly given more attention than others, each person has some form of identifiable trait that functions as a catalyst for their further development. The film contains several long, slow-paced scenes of mundane dialogue that are consistently supported by the performers, and the arcs that they are creating for their characters based around their individual traits. 

This may sound like how every film is supposed to operate, but what elevates Loafers’ character work the most is how consistent and attentive the performers are with regard to how much development they reveal in each subsequent interaction. It’s done so near invisibly. One character is in the middle of a tumultuous relationship with his mother. This information is revealed very early in the film, and for the rest of the runtime, you can feel this pain influencing nearly every choice he makes, and every conversation he initiates or derails. Also, if you’re a man in your early to mid twenties specifically, I would be shocked if you didn’t find a moment in the film where you sit forward and think to yourself “I have had this exact same conversation several times.”

The issues found in the film are pretty easy to spot, but the only reason for this is because a good ninety percent of any potential problems are due to the restraints the filmmakers had. There’s a recurring restaurant setup that doesn’t feel particularly lived in or staged, the sound editing could have used a few more overall passes, and the timing of certain exchanges could have potentially been shortened to make the comedy more sharp. But there’s a lot more to the film that could have been inhibited or restricted if it weren’t for the clearly sharp eye Schnitzer and crew have for adaptation and willingness to improvise with restrictions. The utilization of their limited set space with a single cam set up feels simultaneously very well rehearsed and blocked, while still maintaining a clear sense of spontaneity and kineticism that infuses such a lovely energy to the film. There is one scene in particular that consists of a rather long oner in the gang’s house as a conflict progresses that has the makings of a future great written all over it. 

Most importantly, the film understands the subtleties and the tenderness of early to mid twenties male friendships far better than the majority of schlock you see nowadays pretending to do so. Characters hug it out after an argument, apologize to each other authentically, and make a point to say “I love you” after even the most casual of hangouts. And I think what moved me the most is what Schnitzer said to me in our soon to be published conversation on the film regarding that detail specifically. When I asked why it was so important to him to have characters speak this way to each other, he said that he wished he had genuinely thought to make a point of it every time. It all just came to him pretty naturally because that’s how he talks to his friends, and that’s how everybody should, so why not just show it? 

This is the kind of filmmaking intuition that excites me, and should excite you too. Loafers currently does not have a wide release date, but when the time comes where you have the ability to see it, I certainly recommend you do so. Especially if you’re a filmmaker yourself. It’ll light a fire under you.