I’m Reed Fish is another Netflix instant movie I added based only on the cast. The cover they show on the site (not this poster) just has Jay Baruchel and Alexis Bledel. Good enough for me. Turns out it also has DJ Qualls, Schuyler Fisk, Karey Sagal and Chris Parnell. It ended up being a pretty charming little movie about a guy (Baruchel) dealing with being a pretty big deal in a pretty small time thanks to the influence his now-dead father had. He’s about to get married to Bledel when all of a sudden his former classmate and smalltown girl who made good Fisk shows up and starts making him wonder about what life could have been. That’s how I read it at least, the movie’s good enough to not just bash you over the head with everything. Soon enough things are falling apart and Reed’s job as the literal voice of reason on the local radio station turns out to be a way for the entire town to give him shit. The performances are all spot on and guys like Qualls and Parnell who have a tendency to overact sometimes or be too big, fit right in with the small town world.

Let’s call this SPOILER territory. The movie has a twist that’s revealed about 20-30 minutes in and that is that the movie you’re watching is actually a movie written and directed by Baruchell’s Reed Fish. A technical problem freezes the movie and we see many of the townsfolk from the movie in the audience, so you’re supposed to infer that many of them played themselves, though he did get other people to play the women in his life. We see him run into one of those women, though we’re not sure which one it is as he apologizes for putting their story up on screen right before the glich is fixed. So not only are you wondering what happens to Fish by the end of the movie within a movie, but you’re also wondering which girl he was talking to. Very interesting. Adding to the meta-ness of the whole thing, the writing credit went to Reed Fish. Huh? I should probably do some research, but I’m just going to bask in the enjoyment I had for this little movie. Definitely recommended.