Cinematical

Sometimes you watch a movie and instantly see the movies that have influenced it. With Farewell Bender, for instance, it's obvious that the movie's influences include Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti and Diner. But in this instance, it's more than just an observation. Writer-director Matt Oates acknowledges in the press notes for Bender that he and co-writer Jeremiah Lowder initially set out to make a movie similar to those exact three. Such ambition is respectable, yet allowing for such comparisons can often diminish a film's chances for independent and unrivaled praise (the near-equal esteem of Dazed and Confused to American Graffiti, which influenced it, is a rarity). Regardless of how good Bender is -- and it is surprisingly quite good -- it will unfortunately exist in the shadow of its better predecessors.

The main reason the movie doesn't rise up and supplement the group is that its story is too reliant on a catalyst: the worn-out device of a funeral, which reunites old friends. This time it is the death of the title character that brings together his high-school buddies Mitch (Kip Pardue), Stan (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Dixon (Josh Cooke). Although the funeral stimulates a number of important dramatic and philosophical angles in the script, the film requires a more freewheeling context in order to accommodate its broader points. The characters in Bender, all on the verge of an adulthood they don't seem ready for, are sufficiently interesting and enjoyable when the film consists of them simply hanging out, experiencing the story's weekend time frame no differently than any other time in their young lives.

In fact, the three main characters barely seem affected by their friend's death throughout the film's second act. Mitch picks up a high school senior named Katie (Kaley Cuoco), who he consumes and throws away as if she were fast food from the film's obligatory drive-in joint. Stan is dumped by his girlfriend, Amber (Alexandra Holden), who wants to be "just friends," and then begins a courtship with Kelly (Marisa Coughlan, who closely enough resembles Holden that at first I didn't realize a new character had been introduced). Dixon, who it turns out was with Bender when he died, suffers the most with relation to the funeral and goes through the motions of getting drunk, getting into fights and furthermore being all-around destructive. However, his role as the recklessly erratic, self-indulgent friend succeeds beyond his grief thanks to an amazing performance from Cook, an actor who evokes the best of Richard Linklater's bullies (Ben Affleck in Dazed and Confused; Nicky Katt in SubUrbia) but who displays enough depth and charisma to not appear as one-dimensional. Additionally his pseudo-homophobic and -misogynistic manner and dialogue is funnier and smarter than anything comparable in a Kevin Smith film.

Farewell Bender ultimately succeeds with a cyclical, nothing-changed outcome, avoiding the annoyance of simple resolutions (and possibly giving good reason for Amber and Kelly's resemblance). Mitch, Stan and Dixon are only as altered as another day alters us all. Sure they'll never see their friend again, but the film never really tells us anything about Bender, and so the loss never feels significant enough to them or to us. Farewell Bender is a great example of why contrivances are unnecessary the majority of the time, but it also demonstrates how an honest script and a dependable cast can redeem an otherwise artificial idea.