For a film in which rape, manslaughter and drug overdoses occur, Ben Jacobson’s “Bunny” maintains a good cheer. Set over the 24 hours of sex worker Bunny’s (Mo Stark) birthday, which turns out to be infinitely more chaotic than he ever imagined, it holds to a party spirit. The final scene testifies to this: New Yorkers of all kinds hold court on the sidewalk. Even the film’s cops are more bark than bite. It’s a love letter to an East Village that’s been all but gentrified out of existence.
Bunny is first seen in the back of a police car. Wearing clothes covered in blood, he escapes and races down the street. Making it back to his apartment, he’s greeted by his wife, Bobbie (Liza Colby), who offers his gift: a threesome with her and another woman. The experience that occurred to him earlier in the day is revealed halfway through. A hustler who services male and female clients, he was sexually assaulted by two men who booked his services. After the situation became even more violent, Bunny is hunted down by the men’s driver. As they fight in his building, the driver falls to his death. His best friend Dino (played by the director) lives downstairs, helping him to rally the entire building to get the corpse out without anyone getting arrested.
That plot description doesn’t quite do justice to the sprawling set of characters. One is the building’s landlord, an Asian-American woman who barely speaks English. Bunny and his wife have an Airbnb guest: an Orthodox Jewish woman with a dizzying set of requirements for the circumstances she can stay under. Bunny’s father-in-law (Tony Drazan) stops by, feeling unwell, and gets very high on edibles supplied by Dino. The building becomes a microcosm of the entire city and a chosen family.
Jacobson’s style combines aspects of Sean Baker and the Safdie brothers. (Dino’s bleached blonde hair and darker beard resemble Robert Pattinson in the Safdies’ “Good Time.”) Throughout “Bunny,” the anxiety level gets cranked up. Yellow lighting contributes to an atmosphere of unreal queasiness, as though the smells in the air are visible. D.P. Jackson Hunt relies on handheld camera, moving quickly and never letting the audience get its bearings. The editing enhances this even further.
The location proves to be one of the stars. Jacobson shoots the apartment building’s hallways from uncomfortable angles, whipping back and forth through them. Under normal circumstances, navigating its stairs looks challenging. Jacobson stages a fight against the hallway’s wall.
At its weakest, “Bunny” mashes up pieces of other directors’ work. Jacobson’s debt to Baker is evident in the structure, which builds slowly till it feels like one long chase scene. There’s a touch of ‘90s Tarantino in the dialogue — conversation about David Carradine plays an important role — not to mention the concept of a man needing to getting rid of a corpse. Jacobson himself sees the references to indie genre films of that era: the camera movements were drawn from Nick Gomez’s “Laws of Gravity.” While the connection must be accidental, Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing,” released last August, uses the same East Village milieu, albeit set in the past. In interviews and press statements, Jacobson speaks about intense cinephilia, preferring to watch three movies a day. One can sense this in “Bunny,” and it’s not entirely positive.
But the saving grace of “Bunny” is that as fanciful as it gets, there’s a visible thread tying it to life. Some of this stems from the casting. Stark and Colby really are married, and their own apartment was used as a set. The building’s a real location. Jacobson cast non-professional actors. Of all people, “Forrest Gump” and “Dune” screenwriter Eric Roth turns up in a small role.
Even more appealingly, it treats violence with a sense of humor without trivializing it. Bunny tries his best to be kind, seeing sex work as part of that ethic. Most of the deaths he becomes entangled in are accidental. The film’s prevailing mood is a stoned silliness that takes the edge off its more anxiety-inducing elements. It’s a flirtation with death that gets a kick out of escaping it to connect again with others.
“Bunny” | Directed by Ben Jacobson | Vertical | Opens Nov. 14th in select theaters and premieres on VOD
