Bonerman

Bonerman is a heartfelt comedy mockumentary that follows Brian, a mild-mannered and recently dumped accountant, on his mission to become the superhero LA deserves but never asked for. He’s having difficulty breaking into the superhero scene, but is confident that if he keeps trying, eventually he will succeed as a “sexual vigilante” (a job of his own creation that involves sleeping with people who badly want to be slept with.) The project is shot through the lens of self-proclaimed auteur-director, the unbearably pretentious Jork Jaques-Cousteau, with a minimal filmmaking setup consisting of a single cameraman, a shoulder mount, and a tripod. We watch as the documentary crew follows Brian and his alter ego Bonerman through quitting his job, going into debt, living out of his car after being kicked out by his ex-girlfriend, getting sued by his arch-nemesis Drive Truckman, attempting to convince the world of his worth as a sexual superhero, and making lasting friendships along the way.

The film explores millennial isolation and alienation through a failed superhero narrative. The emotional tone is similar to the works of Christopher Guest or Documentary Now!--mixing absurdist and dry humor--than to the traditional mockumentary touchstones of The Office or Parks and Rec. It takes characters and situations bordering on the zany--a failed superhero running around with a bright green dildo flopping off the front of his suit; a much more successful superhero whose sole ‘power’ is owning a truck in Los Angeles, an inexperienced director willing to follow his subjects into financial ruin--and grounds them in the sometimes ugly and heartbreaking reality of being dangerously broke in the city: sitting in a sun-baked car, showering at friends’ houses, and screaming at city officials on the phone.

The impetus for the story, on the outside, is that our protagonist has just been catastrophically dumped and has snapped in a major, lycra-covered way. But we also want to draw attention to the world that Brian is snapping in--one we inhabit ourselves, where the days at work are long, and the opportunities for connection are few, and our only outlet for personal expression is often something as small and depressing as an organized toothbrush drawer. Many of us have been in Brian’s shoes: lovelorn and trapped in jobs we dislike but can’t survive without. We want to explore the pathos and comedy that comes from watching him commit wholeheartedly to his dream...and then fall flat on his face. The heart of this story is in watching Brian come to a compromise with himself--although he has to return to a job he hates and doesn’t get his ex back, he ends the film as someone with true friends, and as someone who has, through blowing up his life in the most bizarre way possible, recaptured and nurtured the part of his personality that makes him him.