Weixler and Eisenberg at the truck
Today a movie revolving around a single food truck launches. It’s not a documentary, it’s more like Juno meets Groundhogs Day. Dry humor, all things hipster, and the same thing happening over and over with a slight variant each time. It appeared in the 2012 Tribeca Film festival (among many others), and is now coming to us!
The basis of the storyline is a girl (played by Jess Weixler) works on a food truck for a day, largely because her hangover weakened her will to protest a friend’s plea to fill in for her. So, she’s stuck in a metal box under the strong California sun serving a single sample of ice cream to each person who comes up to the truck. She’s romanced throughout the movie by Jesse Eisenberg (of The Social Network) in a slightly Napoleon-and-Deb type fashion, with all the awkwardness plus a sprinkle of aggression. We don’t want to tell you too much about the movie itself, but we do think people who like food trucks might enjoy it, so we want to give you some additional deets we got from Weixler and director Jay Gammill (below).
Weixler said the heat in the truck was made even more fierce by all the lights for filming and can definitely sympathize with food truck owners who are in trucks in hot weather day in and day out. However, despite feeling claustrophic in the small space, she said it came with a certain sense of power as well. “You have people something want,” she said, adding that the vantage point added to the feeling of power.
That fleeting ascendancy was reflected back to her by comedian and Chicagoan Matt Walsh, whose moment of improv ranked as one of our favorite lines in the movie; he said, “You food truck people think you’re so cool. You’re not! I can get ice cream from the store.” Gammill said this unscripted moment is exemplary of Walsh’s fine improv chops. Upon further investigation *coughfivesecondsonimdbcough* we found out that Walsh co-founded the Upright Citizens Brigage with Amy Poehler and a couple others, and he was also in big movies like Ted and The Hangover.
So, if they could open their own food trucks, what kind would they be? Without missing a beat, Gammill said “tacos.” (We’ll try not to read into that too much, but we’re guessing that might be an indication that he either loves all things classic. Or isn’t a foodie. We sometimes forget that not all people google “new food trucks” for fun.) Weixler at first said sushi, then took that back wondering how that would be logistically possible to maintain food freshness, then replaced that response with “fried food” or a thai/mexican fusion truck (we would so go to that truck).
Our take on the movie? Weixler is dynamic and fun to watch, the food truck freaks (and freaky laypeople) are interesting enough you wonder who will come next, and you get thrown a less funny/more serious curveball now and then. it’s not a mind-bender but it’s quirky and enjoyable and BOY do we love a movie that has a food truck on screen more often than not.
If you are now so intrigued that you want to make the leap and see the movie, it is on iTunes today! Nope, it won’t be in theaters in Chicago. So just go on iTunes. Or Amazon Instant.
