Much like everyone who has to deal with Keith in the film, it's very easy to not give him the inch of good faith or attention that he'll surely stretch to endless sputtering tangents. But each time I re-engage with this film, I'm more struck by how Keith is basically the only character driven by legitimate sensitivity or responsibility. Making a sock puppet show for a crying woman is a dumb idea, especially when the only scenario he can conjure is a clearly lived awkward encounter from his job, but it does show a base motivation of caring about another person's feelings and wanting to do something positive about it, which is something basically no one else is willing to do for him. Trying to get the desk woman at the computer cafe to call his roommate, Charles, to remind him to pay their electric bill is stupid in such a specific, "people will only believe me if I lie" mindset that shows a certain sort of neurosis that hits very close to home. And yet there is the basis of a responsible idea there, he did need to get Charles to pay the electric bill and clearly talking to him didn't work.
What's most interesting about all this is, in almost all of his interactions, Keith's always trying to narrativize his life to other's to establish commonalities or understanding. Whether it's about his father's heartattack, how he couldn't cry as a kid, how he vowed to never be "the giving tree", it's striking how legitimately ingenious these connections are when you can translate past his stuttering syntax. It's no surprise Joe Matt's Peepshow was Bronstein's main inspiration for this film, with obsessive-verging-on-destructive introspection being such a guiding force. So it's telling that Keith's most cogent scene in the movie is the scene where he's talking to his therapist, someone whose sole responsibility is just hearing him out. But even that scene presents another level of nuance, where Keith seems unable to process the straightforward questioning of the therapist regarding the story of his parents arguing, where his response seems to grasp at what he thinks the therapist wants to hear instead of encouraging further probing into his own perspective on the situation.
I think this ties into Keith's largest flaw (and really a crux of the problems of everyone in this movie and beyond) being his inability to meaningfully consider and internalize the perspectives of other people. His boss doesn't want to hear him sputter out a bunch of apologies and tells him this directly, but Keith persists with it anyway because to him he's doing "the right thing". And that's indicative of his whole broken communication approach, his stuttering is from trying to explain a hundred things simultaneously that, laid out all on paper, would get his point across properly. But by failing to understand the mechanisms of how people conduct dialogue and consider the person he's talking to, he's left to flail in his own world. But it also wouldn't kill people to hear him out at least a little bit, or at least establish definite boundaries. Like the clearest example of this is during Keith's manic episode at the end with his wary friend Sandy, where Sandy says "I'll give you two minutes", and of course Keith starts sputtering as he has been the entire scene, then Sandy immediately cuts him off to get into a physical altercation. It's like c'mon man, Keith's clearly going through some stuff there, if you just let him sputter on for a few minutes I like to think it'd at least help him sort whats bouncing around in his head and hopefully calm down a bit. But with Keith, where does it end? You let him come to your room to grab his badge (that he almost 100% left there intentionally), then next thing you know he's skimming your toothpaste and crashing your Buster Keaton watch. In this crazy, "your place is not Fort Bragg" state, who knows what he'd do? Damn, communication's tough.
And then there's Charles, who has a much more approachable syntax, but it's like man, screw this guy. His screwup with the electric bill and deflection of blame during the confrontation with Keith, like how scummy can you get. But then, during the job application and LSAT scene, I start to kinda feel for the guy. I don't know what goes into a Hollandaise sauce on the spot. And the scene with the fellow test taker in the stairwell, it's like he's constantly trying to find any "in" to have a comfortable convo with this guy by constantly changing what he's saying to try and parrot "yes and" the other guy, who's giving him nothing. And sure it's kind of spineless, but like, with someone you've just met, I've done that before. It's like you just wanna have a chill moment with this dude after a stupid test, why not try and establish some common ground. And what's that other guy's deal anyway, with the constant stonewalls and mocking? "In the middle of this ontological, epistemological crisis, your safety net is Trizzlers"? So what if it is! Then he steals his walkman! Was he just being a jerk and depriving bro of his "safety net", or did he realize "that actually sounds pretty good"?
See, these are the types of questions great art should inspire. I don't get any defined "Frownland Ending Explained" answers, I just get a fresh perspective on stuff that hits real for me. Keith stumbling and snotting around that party at the end? I've felt that. I hope Keith will be ok. I think he will, maybe with a better roommate.
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