MICRO BUDGET Review: Taking Down Filmmaking From the Inside

Most movies that go behind the scenes on a set to showcase the blood, sweat and tears that go into making movies treat filmmaking as a badge of honor.

 

Whether it's a documentary -- see Mark Borchardt in American Movie (1999) -- or outright fiction --Bobby Bowfinger in Bowfinger (1999) -- the end result is almost always a director's triumphant victory lap that celebrates creativity and artistic expression against all odds.

 

And then there's movies like Morgan Evans' bitiing satire Micro Budget (2024), which treat filmmaking like an endurance test that not everyone has the fortitude for.

 

The very meta premise is a movie about a mockumentary about the making of a movie. The director here is Terry (Andrew Noth, giving off "sadsack Ed Begley Jr." vibes), an Iowa native who moves his very pregnant wife and his cast and crew into an L.A. airbnb to make a sci-fi movie, despite having almost no money or resources and coming off like he's barely seen a movie in his life, let alone know how to make one.

 

There's no grand artistic statement, either; Terry's one goal is to make money by selling his movie to a streamer. "They'll buy anything" seems to be his, and by extension, Evans' stance on the current ubiquity of the 50 or so available streaming platforms, give or take.

 

The cutoff's very simple when it comes to comedies: is it funny? And on that count, Micro Budget succeeds, going for cringe humor that's obviously inspired by The Office.

 

Terry himself is like Tommy Wiseau by way of Michael Scott, and as clueless as both of them. He’s surrounded by what you would expect to see on a movie set: self-centered diva actors, a put-upon crew just trying to work (including that one guy who just hangs around and no one can say what he does), out-of-touch talent agents, a caterer whose entire menu consists of leftovers, and of course, very fragile egos.

 

But it’s Noth who walks away with the movie, hilariously playing an idiot with chronic foot-in-mouth disease and no self-awareness who wants to make movies, even though he has no idea what Taxi Driver is, and who you’ll probably want to punch in the face by the end. He gets an assist from some high-profile cameos like Maria Bamford, Chris Parnell and Bobby Moynihan, as well as what is possibly the most random, out-of-nowhere walk-on of the year, one that warrants several double takes.

 

Evans apparently has some very strong opinions about the current state of indie film, where passion and creativity get mostly squashed once a director makes the leap to studio filmmaking and gets inevitably stuck in blockbusters and franchises. And with streamers only looking for “content”, it seems to be a pretty grim time for directors. Thankfully Evans avoids preaching to make his point, relying instead on some solid jokes and good interplay between his cast, and keeping the insider references to a minimum.

 

Christopher Guest is probably the gold standard when it comes to mockumentaries, and while not on the same level, Micro Budget is a respectable addition. Rather than a celebration of film, it’s a pretty hilarious takedown of current moviemaking, even if it’ll make any aspiring director drop out of the business altogether and just go into auto repair.