Fried Barry (2020)
Written and directed by Ryan Kruger
Starring Gary Green, Chanelle de Jager, Brett Williams and Joey Cramer
Running time: 1 hour and 39 minutes
Currently unrated, but it contains copious drug use, sexual content, violence, adult themes and the birth of an alien/human hybrid
Director Ryan Kruger’s Fried Barry is A LOT. The story of a burned-out, deadbeat dad who’d rather spend his time in bars or shooting up than at home with his family. One afternoon he’s just up and abducted by aliens who possess his body and take it on a whirlwind tour of the city and its seedy underbelly. It’s entertaining and surprisingly well-acted, but ultimately really exhausting.
From watching the trailer, I was pretty aware of what I was in for: the aliens, the sleaze and Barry’s (Gary Green’s) somehow antagonistic thousand-yard stare are all present, as is the sizzling color palette. And it all worked for me, but there was so much I wasn’t prepared for! Firstly that the film is mostly a one-man show (Green’s) and largely performed in mime! Barry, who is - as the title makes clear - fried, rarely speaks or makes much noise at all. He just kind of ...stares. A lot.
That was one thing that struck me as just a little bit odd in the world of Fried Barry: how often people were willing to engage with the man who looks like a skeleton shrink-wrapped in naugahyde who roadied for Edgar Winter in the 70’s. Barry doesn’t look outright threatening most of the time, but he does look mean. Mean enough that most people probably wouldn’t approach him at random on the street or in a club just because he’s there. More the fool me, I guess because not only does that happen - quite a bit - but apparently Barry’s particular ‘freeze-dried Angus Scrimm in a Canadian tuxedo‘ -appeal makes him damn near the most fuckable man in South Africa. Apparently.
Yeah dawg, Barry is cleaning house. Dudes are trying to blow him in bathroom stalls, ladies are taking him home without a second thought and riding him on their couch… It’s like the scene in Trainspotting where Renton (Ewan McGregor), having recently rediscovered his sex drive, hits a club and goes home with a girl (Kelly Macdonald). Except that kind of makes sense because that was a 25 year-old Ewan McGregor and this is Barry, a man who resembles a judgemental Amish patriarch 30 seconds after opening the Ark of the Covenant!
Yet fuck he does. That first lady, in what I suppose could be a feminist turn, uses Barry to get her rocks off, then - politely - informs him that he should be on his way. It was unclear whether Barry/the alien had likewise achieved orgasm, but in hindsight it’s clear he/they didn’t because a short time later, with a different woman he DEFINITELY does, which results in a 2 minute pregnancy and birth. Did you ever see Species? It’s kind of like that, but instead of a 20 year old Natasha Henstridge as an alien that is biologically designed to attract and mate, it’s Barry, who looks like the lovechild of Iggy Pop and Dobby the House Elf!
I’m giving Gary Green a lot of guff for the way he looks, which I admit is terminally uncool of me, but let’s be clear: that’s obviously part of the gag of the film. That aside, I also happen to think my dude is actually really great in this. As the only real anchor for every crazy thing that happens (and there are lots and I won’t go into all of them), you need someone that can hold things together for you, the viewer, and Green does an excellent job! Once he’s inhabited by the alien, he does this kind of wide-eyed look for most of the rest of the run-time that somehow seems completely natural on his face. The blank “I guess this is happening now” -ness of his performance really, honestly, enhances the absurdity of it.
For what it’s worth, I also thought Chanelle de Jager got a lot out of her performance as Suz, Barry’s wife and baby-mama, at times scolding him, rescuing him or, as so many people do in this movie, just fucking his brains out!
My problem with Fried Barry is it’s just overstimulation to the point of exhaustion. No joke, I paused the movie to use the bathroom, sure that there could only be, at most 25 minutes left: the Barry/alien had had quite a time on Earth (QUITE a time), Barry had reunited with Suz and was now demonstrating genuine consideration for both her and their kid - which I presumed was probably building to a commentary about the biological imperative of all life - and I figured now the aliens would come back for their cohort or somesuch thing and then: credits. Gang, I had AN HOUR LEFT! And things only got crazier. When it was actually, for-real finished, I was exhausted. The same kind of exhaustion I felt after Uncut Gems, which isn’t a bad thing on its own, but the way you get there is at a very different pace.
Late in the film, things also start to feel repetitive. After a violent altercation with a ne’er-do-well, Barry is institutionalized. Then he is rescued from the institution. Then he is hospitalized. Then he is rescued from the hospital. It all gets to feeling very same-y.
In chatting with fellow Moviejawn Jawnie Ben, who had seen Fried Barry before I did, he brought up the idea that this could be cut into a really great short. Believe it or not, Fried Barry actually began its life as a short (of the same title) in 2017. Though that short was only 3 minutes, doesn’t contain aliens and is largely recreated in the opening of the film, I think Ben is pretty much right. Maybe Fried Barry should have stayed a short, or a series of interconnected ones! That might make the repetitive quality of the last act, as well as the modular movie homages (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, etc.) land better and not feel as indulgent?
To put it in jargon that Barry himself would understand (if not adhere to): Fried Barry is a good time, but a strong dose and maybe best taken incrementally.
Fried Barry is available to screen on demand from the Fantasia Festival here, from August 20th to September 2nd.
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