GFF 2013: Breakfast with Curtis

Breakfast with Curtis began life when painter and publisher Theo Green made a series of quirky YouTube videos with teenager Jonah Parker. These vignettes have been adapted by writer/director Laura Colella into a film following the pair, now playing fictional characters Syd and Curtis, doing more or less the same thing.

Colella’s debut effort has a sitcom-like feel to it. Syd’s wise and random musings recall neighbour Wilson from Home Improvement, and shy Curtis is a less annoying and more talented version of James Van Der Beek’s filmmaking coming-of-ager in Dawson’s Creek. This semi-documentary is steeped in a kids’ TV aesthetic. Syd and Curtis mooch around a three-story, purple house, filmed with such a bright, multi-coloured palette it call to mindan episode of Teletubbies. In keeping with the 'Tubbies theme, every outdoor shot is framed with gaily floating leaves and flowers . With this in mind, the film's continual, true-ringing references to sex and drugs make watching Breakfast with Curtis as a grown-up a bizarrely charming cinema experience. [Helen Wright]