Over Easy

Over Easy is a small, indie movie helmed by creative force Alexandra Swarens. Swarens has made a series of such movies, all with sapphic content. She knows her niche and of course, I deeply respect her for the work she puts out. Over Easy shows a strong understanding of what is realistically possible for a film with a small budget. It is a small, focused story with funny moments. However, I worry the story might actually be too small to fill out a feature film.

Belle is a college professor with exceptionally few actual students. After a bad day at work, Belle shows up at girlfriend, Charlie’s suggesting they go on a weekend “adventure.” Charlie agrees and the two travel to a small, tourist trap-type town where Belle booked an Airbnb. Turns out, what Belle booked was simply a room in the house of a friendly, if odd hippy woman. While Charlie takes this weekend adventure as a chance to refocus on their relationship, she eventually learns that Belle has another motive for spontaneously visiting this specific town.

The bones of this story are pretty strong. Over Easy has an inherently funny premise that is also a reveal that happens about halfway through the film. The real reason for Belle’s presence in the town is a pretty good punchline that also provides the back half of the movie’s conflict. The back half is probably stronger than the front half of setup that happens before we learn Belle’s plan. Plus, as mentioned, Swarens found a story that could be told with a focus on few characters and a small handful of locations. Perfect for an indie.

The issue is that there’s a lot of padding. Swarens knows how to write a very realistic dialogue scene. But realism can often be boring. There’s a lengthy scene where the women smoke pot and then converse. Sure, It’s realistic to how stoned people would talk. But stoned people are almost never as profound, interesting or funny as they think they are. Such is the case here. This padding of realistic dialogue often kills the funny moments. Like I said, there are funny premises in this script and the occasional funny punchline. But the effect of this is often so dampened by either leading up to it with a whole lot of discussion about nothing or following the punchline with that. Ideally, a funny line would punctuate a scene. In Over Easy, it’s more like the meat in a sandwich where the bread is less focused, less funny dialogue.

Ultimately, I was mildly amused by Over Easy. And I respect its execution and existence. This keeps the film in the mixed review section, but only just. Over Easy is a very small story told in a pretty classic indie movie way. This means it will likely not be a partially memorable film for most viewers. But if after some time, all I remember is the basic premise and conflict of Over Easy, that would be a decently fond memory.

Overall rating: 5.1/10

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