Andrew Bujalski’s last film COMPUTER CHESS (2013) was set in the world of programmer nerds competing in computer chess in a California hotel in 1980. Shot in fuzzy black and white, the film seemed like a relic from a different world inhabited by human-like species with little to no social skills and thick glasses. RESULTS is set in a similarly hostile environment: the team color in the fitness studio Power4Life is bright yellow. Brawny trainers yell out orders like “we are all a team, don’t let your comrades down!“. In his artificially lit office studio boss Trevor (Guy Pierce) explains his four elements philosophy (body, spirit, soul, and feeling) to new member Danny (Kevin Corrigan). Danny, a flabby man in his mid-40s with thinning hair, says he wants to learn how to take a hit. In the background there’s a poster: No Fear, No Excuses, No Surrender. Danny books one-on-one coaching sessions for 2 years in advance.
All the characters in RESULTS are out of it. Especially Trevor, who talks in motivational blurbs which no one believes in but him. Danny recently came into a lot of money and doesn’t know what to do with it. His strategy seems to be to buy as much stuff as possible: an electric guitar, a jazz combo, a fitness coach. He offers $200 for someone to connect his TV and another $200 for someone to bring him a clean cat. It doesn’t help his social relationships much. Coach Kat (Cobie Smulders) is in constant circuit training. When she eats it‘s an energy bar, when she drinks it’s a smoothie, when she sits it’s on a fitball ,and when she stands around she manages to turn it into a stretching exercise. Slowing down is not an option for her.
RESULTS follows their eccentric interactions living in a dready suburb. Everything in RESULTS is as faceless and functional as the fitness studio and as dull as the surface of an uninhabited planet. Identical houses in empty streets. Living rooms with the charm of an operating room. Sofas that look mundane the minute they are unpacked that sit in tiled rooms. Everything seems temporary.
RESULT‘s plot is idiosyncratic. All of Bujalski’s films encompass completely distinct worlds. Encounters seem more like collisions. The actions and conversations bump against each other like billiard balls hit in unpredictable directions. When Trevor meets his fitness idol, Grigory “you can cry or you can work“ Volkov, their respective bubbles clash. Spiritual gibberish versus war rhetoric: “It’s like you say, I dream of something and then I make it happen“ “No, what I say is: stop dreaming.“ Kat gets into a discussion in a cafe about whether a yolkless egg should cost more or get a discount. There seems to be an understanding about that, surprisingly enough. It is similarly surprising that the strange protagonists in this original indie comedy do manage to grow on you.

Hendrike Bake (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy