Mark and Jay Duplass write like ‘Brothers’
Mark and Jay Duplass are not just brothers, kind of like their new book is not just a memoir.
The fraternal filmmakers make up one of Hollywood’s most prolific partnerships, having executive-produced shows for Netflix ( Wild Wild Country) and HBO ( Togetherness), co-directed low-budget features ( Cyrus, Jeff, Who Lives at Home), and appeared together on the big and small screen ( The Mindy Project, Duck Butter).
In Like Brothers (Ballantine, 288 pp., ★★★☆), Mark, 41, and Jay, 45, are similarly uninhibited, letting readers know from the get-go that this isn’t merely going to be a play-by-play of how two ambitious kids from Louisiana made good.
Rather, the book playfully darts between personal essays, pop-culture tributes and self-help tips. Need “unsolicited advice” about roommates, cars and the stock market? They have some. Wonder why Hoop Dreams and Dumb and Dumber rub shoulders on their best-ever movies ranking? They’ll explain.
While you don’t have to be an aspiring filmmaker or cinephile to enjoy what they have to say, you’ll certainly get the most out of Like Brothers if you are. One section is devoted to exhaustive, stepby-step instructions on how to make micro-budget shorts and submit one’s films to festivals.
Anecdotal passages offer other teaching moments, as the brothers candidly explain how their naive perception that a bigger budget equals a better movie sunk their shelved first feature, Vince del Rio, and why downsizing to focus on story and character made 2005’s The Puffy Chair a breakout success (and an early entry into the “mumblecore” film genre).
But what sets Like Brothers apart from other celebrity essay collections is the uncanny bond between its authors. For those of you who don’t have close siblings, the Duplasses’ relationship may seem almost too good to be true, at times irritatingly so.
They wistfully recall their nights as kids, when they’d sneak into each other’s twin beds and lie awake talking about their dreams of making movies one day — a ritual that continued into college when Mark would visit Jay on weekends.
They frequently describe their “intimate” and “codependent” relationship in almost-romantic terms, worrying that “we might never find anyone we could be as close with as we were with each other,” before they met their nowwives. (The women contribute a chapter in the form of a questionnaire, in which Mark and Jay ask their spouses if they’re bothered by their uncommonly close connection.)
But their gushing declarations give way to less-guarded ruminations in the book’s second half, as the brothers peel back the layers of their dynamic and who they are as individuals. Marked-up script pages and unedited email exchanges show the raw, sometimes unflattering feedback they’ll give each other’s work, leaving one with a bruised ego and the other trying to apologize without backing down on his criticisms.
Despite their initial promise to direct everything together, they admit to feeling jealous and stifled at times — the result of knowing each other so intensely that they need to pursue independent projects and friendships in order to maintain their own identities. But being the genial, sensitive guys they are, they always thoughtfully talk through their differences and rarely end an exchange without saying “I love you.”
Like Brothers is ultimately a fascinating window into the creative process, showing the complexities that come with being so inextricably linked. Not exactly the type of meaningful discourse you might expect from two guys who sign their correspondence “Elmer Dinglesplatt, C.P.A.” and “Diarrhea Party 2049.”