Duck Butter

Duck Butter had good potential. The script had moments that could have been something and the acting was solid. It was almost a good movie. What tips it over into being a bad movie though is how utterly damn pointless this story is.

Duck Butter primarily focuses on a relationship speedrun between the main two characters. Naima is an uptight aspiring actress. One night, she meets Sergio, a more free-spirited aspiring singer. The women agree to try an experiment where they spend 24 straight hours together. The film follows the course of these 24 hours. As you would imagine, it starts fun and sexy but doesn’t stay that way. Personal flaws start to emerge and the lack of sleep doesn’t help them to deal with the conflicts that pop up. Ultimately, the relationship doesn’t survive the 24 hour first date.

There are no stakes here! That’s the main problem with the film. There’s no urgency and therefore, little potential ramifications if a character does or doesn’t do something. Movies like this can be good but they require a stronger script and better characters. With Duck Butter, you learn the characters through the relationship mostly. But the relationship itself is shallow so the characters remain so as well. So what we end up with is just a day in the life of two people I don’t care about whose first date didn’t work out.

It mostly seems like Naima dodged a bullet because Sergio is just a walking red flag. This isn’t like it’s two potentially well-suited people who tanked their relationship due to a dumb idea. It’s two inherently unsuitable people, one of whom in particular is way too intense. It’s Sergio alone who suggests that any of this means anything. She gets really intense about their connection and starts professing her love during what I must reiterate, is their first date. This eventually descends to her chasing Naima around with a pan of her own feces demanding she be honest. Any sort of emotional breakthrough Naima had is really undercut by the fact that Sergio is clearly nuts.

Duck Butter is open and honest about bodily functions and sexuality. Sometimes it’s good. I think most of the sex scenes feel realistic and frank. But it also goes way too far into gross town. Sergio chasing Naima around with feces in the third act was the second time that happened during the runtime. It also turns out that the film’s title is a reference to smegma. It’s all a bit much for me. It goes past openness and honesty to being gross for the sake of it.

Duck Butter manages to lack both specificity and universality. I don’t feel like I got much insight into Naima and Sergio as individuals. Yet the film also fails to make any sort of statements about relationships or the human condition or whatever. Duck Butter is just two random people who are inherently unsuitable for each other who realize it sooner than most. I just don’t care.

Overall rating: 3.9/10

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