Lynn Shelton saw through the bullshit

By Jacob Skubish

Lynn Shelton, a pioneering indie filmmaker, died on May 15 at the far-too-young age of 54. A career filled with brilliant feature films, which she didn’t start directing until age 39, was cut short. A relationship with partner Marc Maron, described by Maron in an emotionally crushing episode of his podcast this week, was cut short. A loss of someone so completely good, this prematurely and abruptly, is a boundless tragedy. It is complete and utter bullshit.

The world is full of bullshit, and Lynn Shelton’s movies were about characters knee-deep in it. Her protagonists so often thought they were above it, oblivious to how much bullshit they were spewing themselves. Take Humpday, Shelton’s 2009 film about two old friends from college, both straight men, who decide to enter an amateur pornography festival and film themselves having sex with each other. As the two continue to insist they are going to follow through on the project, it is painfully obvious they are lying, but neither wants to be the first to back down.

Andrew (Joshua Leonard) is worried that if he breaks first it will be further proof that he can’t finish anything, and a vindication of his fear that he is not the free spirit he positions himself as. For Ben (Mark Duplass), the endeavor is about reassuring himself that married life has not completely hollowed out his willingness to try new things. Marriage “crushed all the other sides to me,” Ben tells his wife while explaining why he wants to do this. He sees the porno as an escape from the confines of adulthood.

In Laggies, Megan (Keira Knightley) avoids ever reaching those confines of adulthood with everything she’s got. Unable or unwilling to put her graduate degree to good use, Megan plays hooky with career counseling events and avoids telling her longtime boyfriend she doesn’t really love him; at one point she recoils at the word “plan” as if just hearing it could be poisonous. Searching for a way to avoid responsibility, Megan befriends a high schooler named Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and tries to turn back time.

Meanwhile, other Shelton characters refuse to look back at all. In the opening scene of Your Sister’s Sister, Jack (Duplass) calls a glowing eulogy to his late brother “Fucking bullshit.” He’s in pain, of course, but won’t admit it to himself. So his best friend Iris (Emily Blunt) sends him away for alone time to her family cabin, only for Jack to find Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) already there. A triangle of lies ensues between the three, with Jack and Hannah hiding their one-night stand from Iris and Iris hiding her love for Jack.

It’s a great tragedy that no actor will ever again have the privilege of starring in a Lynn Shelton movie; Duplass, Blunt, and DeWitt are all at the top of their game, and Shelton gives their performances so much room to breathe. The performances in Lynn Shelton movies are comparable to those in other movies like watching an animal roam free in the wild is comparable to seeing one in a zoo; they are just so much more free.

It’s a quality Shelton unlocked in Maron with her final feature film, Sword of Trust. He’s never been so tender or nuanced as an actor as he is playing Mel, a pawn shop owner who stumbles into a deal to sell a sword that purportedly proves the Confederacy won the Civil War. Mel thinks the mythology around the sword is total bullshit, and so do the sellers. But they’re willing to adopt the story for a little while if it means they might get paid.

Taken together, these descriptions of Shelton’s films paint a picture of a cynical creator interested in the less enviable aspects of human behavior. This is half true. Shelton’s movies are always honest about the uniquely human capacity to fuck up, but she’s far from a cynic. Her characters eventually come to recognize the shortcomings of their ways, and she always guides them there with a delicate hand.

This transformation is often spurred by a drink. Laggies, Your Sister’s Sister, and Humpday all include scenes where perfect strangers begin to open up to each other over shots. These scenes are as much revelations for the characters themselves as they are for the audience; for Shelton, it seems we are not complete people until we start communicating a little more honestly. Still, these benders are antecedent to the genuine revelations in Shelton films.

Her movies follow a similar, satisfying pattern: characters dance around emotional honesty as the tension builds, until the dam bursts and it all comes flying out. The peak of honesty comes after this outburst, as her characters finally recognize that covering up their feelings with a thin layer of bullshit was never much of a disguise to begin with. We can’t really be honest, these moments show, until we are honest with ourselves.

“I’m beginning to feel like a total fucking fraud,” Andrew says late in Humpday, as he finally manages to take a step back from his cultivated persona and recognize the faults in his life choices. The reason Shelton’s movies are so endearing is because this sort of somber lamentation does not feel like a sad moment, but a triumphant one. Any sort of honesty, even if it’s being honest about your own failures, is a step forward. “You can’t keep putting aside what you want for some imaginary future,” Megan says in Laggies. “You’ve just got to suck it up and go with your gut.”

In Sword of Trust, the awakening is slightly different: there is a revelation of the bullshit in the main plot line, but the real discovery happens during a conversation Mel has with the owners of the sword in the back of a truck. Unlike Shelton’s other movies, it’s a discovery that drives a change in behavior toward another character, rather than just within Mel. It’s an interesting tweak on the formula, and I’m sad we don’t get to see how Shelton might have expanded it further; Sword of Trust makes the case that being honest is not only a remedy for self-improvement, but an ingredient for communal good. The love that Shelton spread in her life and own career make this case even stronger.

It’s bullshit that Lynn Shelton had to leave this world so young. That much is obvious. But it would be even greater bullshit to focus on her life by her death. She was a unique director who made emotionally resonant movies. I’m grateful for them, and for her.