For surefire entertainment, the “one crazy day” subgenre is a reliable standby, cramming people, places, and things into an eventful 24 hours of incident. It’s a mode that has served a wide scope of filmmakers incredibly well, from Martin Scorsese to John Carpenter to Walter Hill, and doubly so when they manage to lock down a vivid central location for the action to take place. In the case of Bunny, the feature-length debut of director Ben Jacobson, the film’s entire 90-minute runtime is situated in and around a Manhattan tenement building, surveying a variety of personalities as they navigate an escalating comedy of errors as one summer day grows from bad to worse. The film is very much indebted to the recent successes from the likes of Sean Baker and the Safdie Brothers, and while Jacobson does not quite demonstrate the inherent skill found in those filmmakers, he still knows how to shape an enjoyable good time, as Bunny is buoyed by its brisk pace and appealing lead performances.
“Bunny” refers to the film’s eponymous title character (Mo Stark), a streetwise hustler who juggles odd jobs with taking care of the residents of his East Village apartment building, always mindful to put others before himself. We come to understand Bunny as a man who has his life somewhat sorted out, though this is not evident in the opening moments of the film, as we witness him sprinting for his life down the streets of New York, covered in blood from a trick turned wrong. Clearly, something bad is afoot, and soon, violent types are out for Bunny, who retreats back to his home base to regroup. But Bunny’s problems are just getting started, as he’s also welcoming Happy Chana (Genevieve Hudson-Price) to stay as an Airbnb tenant, but finds that her Orthodox Judaism requires the number of females to outnumber the number of males during her stay. Helping to balance out that ratio is Bunny’s partner, Bobbie (Liza Colby), who is hoping to relax into a haze of drugs but is unaware that her estranged father, Loren (Tony Drazan), is arriving for a surprise visit to make amends with his daughter, disrupting their weekend plans. When Bunny’s morning altercation follows him home, a brief scuffle results in him ending up with a dead body on his hands, scrambling to hide the evidence while two police officers (Ajay Naidu and Liz Caribel Sierra) sniff around on the streets below, certain that somebody inside is up to no good. The only real support Bunny has comes from empathetic landlady Linda (Linda Rong Mei Chen) and best friend Dino (Jacobson), who both help out our protagonist in his urgent time of need.
Sex, drugs, and murder: all in a day’s work. The above summary paints a potentially dark and disturbing picture for Bunny, but truth be told, the film is actually a much more light-hearted affair, even with the crime spree running through its middle. Jacobson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Stark and Stefan Marolachakis, prioritizes the communal aspects of the tenement building above all else, of which Bunny is a central figure, helping others take out the trash or carry out their laundry. Bunny’s not a bad guy, he just gets mixed up in some bad things, and Stark brings a natural charisma to the role, delivering an approachable, authentic performance even as the chaos escalates. And escalate it does, as one dead body suddenly turns into two, with the police suspicious of the dead man’s car that has been parked out front for an awfully long time, curious as to where the owner might be. Things grow frantic as the day carries on, but as a director, Jacobson does not ratchet up the tension, preferring to keep things in the register of a slight simmer, which negates the severity of Bunny’s crimes but also emphasizes the picture’s hangout vibes, opting to just live in the tenement building as these New Yorkers move through another day in their lives. Jacobson also doesn’t here exhibit any of the formal skill of any of his aforementioned contemporaries, but he does have a decent eye for character, and the surrogate family at the heart of Bunny is what stands out as its strongest material. The film does sweat to hit the 90-minute mark, and it all builds to a happy ending that is not in the least bit plausible, but as a directorial calling card, Bunny makes for an entertainingly good time with good company.
DIRECTOR: Ben Jacobson; CAST: Mo Stark, Ben Jacobson, Liza Colby, Anthony Drazan; DISTRIBUTOR: Vertical; IN THEATERS: November 7; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 27 min.
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