Meek data analyst Drew (Colin Burgess) — determined to quit his job — stutters to his boss, “If I have to input more numbers into a little box, I-I’m going to have some s-sort of physical reaction.” While his boss is incredibly attractive and muscular, Drew is so ‘incel’-esque and spindly that the elderly couple seated across from in my theater giggled — Drew barely seems sure of his own presence, let alone his half-baked threat to his boss.
This elderly couple, at the beginning of writer-director Ryan Martin Brown’s 2023 debut feature, “Free Time,” would regularly let out light chuckles. The film follows Drew, one of the most insufferable protagonists in recent memory, as he drowns in directionless ennui after quitting his cushy job on a whim. But, very soon, this couple’s chuckles morphed into dropped jaws, which were then covered up as the man buried his head in his hands and the woman sighed, “Nooooo … Jesus.”
Even I, someone staunchly against talking in theaters, let out an exasperated “oh my GOD” with about 30 minutes of the movie left, cringing so hard I shivered — something I have never done before. Desperately checking our phones, we were all hoping that the longest 78 minutes of our lives would soon be over. Poor Drew — the only people having physical reactions were an audience itching to leave their cinematic prison. But perhaps these visceral responses are the key to understanding why this uncomfortable crowd and I didn’t just leave the theater early.
Despite the odd, well-written quips and Burgess’s provocative performance, “Free Time” is not a good film. The sound mixing falters in some scenes, the delayed reactions of background actors aren’t quirky or funny so much as nonsensical, and the fact that Drew has any friends who haven’t already abandoned him is genuinely ludicrous given how unbelievably irritating he is. “Free Time” barely has a point to make. He quit his job, so now what? The privileged and the stupid must realize we live in a capitalist country? Given that the entire film takes place in the gentrified parts of Brooklyn, how do they not know that? The self-centered assuredness of these millennials becomes so exaggerated and repetitive by the end of the film that the intended satire falls flat, leaving the film with an audience that wants to strangle its protagonist.
But “Free Time” subverts a common 21st century genre trope: competence porn. The term refers to the pleasure audiences derive from watching a genius excel at their craft. With the diminished popularity of film criticism and the rise of popular aggregate sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd, we arguably exist in an age in which anti-intellectual film consumption is a growing phenomenon. Competence porn feeds on our loafing, telling us to sit back, relax and let Sherlock Holmes solve the mystery. Oppenheimer will do all the math in front of and for us. Whip out a pint of ice cream, turn off your brain and have Matt Damon be the smart, creative one in “The Martian” (2015). Shh, shh, shh — the expert will lay everything out for you at the end.
Drew is in no way a competent adult. Socially awkward and self-absorbed, it becomes genuinely impressive that he waffles through life without getting decked on a daily basis. The 20-somethings he surrounds himself with are similarly inept, barely able to carry conversations, pin down their podcast topics or realize that, yes, it is ridiculous for a Brooklyn-based rock band to pivot to country ballads.
I would call “Free Time” incompetence porn, but it’s not. TV shows like “Succession” are incompetence porn — we love to see the Roy family squabble, not necessarily because we think we could be better CEOs than the show’s central dysfunctional protagonists, but because we love the dramedy that comes from it all. But with “Free Time,” we don’t get pleasure from Drew’s incompetence so much as we do our competence. As the audience gets to cringe and laugh, our reactions come from a felt social superiority. We would never behave this way in these situations because we’re so much better than that; what’s wrong with him? We are no longer insecure people living mundane lives. We are Sherlock, and we’ve cracked the case: Drew is a top-tier idiot.
In supercharging Drew’s story with maximum irritability, which propels the film from incompetence porn to a disfigured form of competence porn, “Free Time” pushes the latter genre to its limit. There’s a reason I bashed my head into the theater seat in front of me: The film is successful in inspiring fiery emotions, albeit not always pleasurable ones. Despite the film’s flaws — of which there are many — I have to applaud Martin Brown for attempting to flip competence porn on its head. How smart do we really need to feel? That answer is measured by how long we stay in our seats while watching “Free Time.”
Perhaps, in our anti-intellectual age, we will be seeing more of this extreme form of competence porn that turns us into the savants of navigating life. Sometimes, we all want a shortcut to feeling smart. But this does not mean that films should go above and beyond to make their environments stupid.
Let us — and our movies — maintain some intellectual presence.
Contact Liv Steinhardt at [email protected].
