The basic themes behind “Extremely Unique Dynamic” are simple: coming out, the dynamics of friendship. The characters co-writers/directors Harrison Xu and Ivan Leung play echo their real selves. (Katherine Dudas is the film’s third director.) Set during a weekend where Danny (Leung) and Ryan (Xu) decide to make a movie before the latter moves to Canada, the plot draws on Xu’s background as a film industry marketing consultant and Leung’s recent decision to open up about his sexuality. Their characters’ drug use contributes to a spirit that anything can happen, as they just go with the flow. They imagine alter egos of alter egos, dwelling in a modest multiverse. Danny gets so high he can picture the audience watching him. The poster emphasizes this by having each actor appear three times.
“Extremely Unique Dynamic” launches with home videos of Ryan (Xu) and Danny (Leung) as kids. It reveals that this footage is a YouTube clip, then goes into a dizzying series of scenes filmed off a computer. Both are actors, while Ryan also works in marketing. They’ve known each other since childhood, but Ryan is about to leave Los Angeles to live with his fiancée in Edmonton, Alberta. During their last days in the same city, they decide to celebrate their friendship by making a film. Much of “Extremely Unique Dynamic” is occupied with their conversation about what it should be, while Danny can’t keep himself from taking an edible. They settle on the convoluted idea of directing a film about two friends who are also directing one.
Danny’s desire to make his character gay brings a degree of earnestness to the film within the film. Parodying business talk, Ryan enthusiastically responds “that’s really in right now, and gay audiences have a lot of disposable income.” Ryan persists with treating the idea as a narrative trope instead of a fact of life. It slowly dawns on him why Danny identifies with a character who’s held his gayness in secret all his life. Danny’s reliance on weed also suggests he’s self-medicating the anxiety of living in the closet.
“Extremely Unique Dynamic” is acutely aware of its precursors, engaging with debates around portrayals of Asian-American men in Hollywood. Only a few minutes go by before the characters bring up “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.” “Fresh Off The Boat” actor Hudson Yang has a small role as himself, with each appearance preceded by a “Celebrity Cameo” card. As much it mocks the cynical use of “good representation” as a device to attract minority audiences, “Extremely Unique Dynamic” offers an alternative by breaking with cliched norms about gay men. Danny isn’t pining away for his heterosexual best friend, although Ryan brings that up as a potential plot for their movie. While he’s hidden his sexuality, he’s not presented as a tragic victim. Danny and Ryan criticize the small area of space Hollywood has allowed Asian-American men to occupy, complaining that they’re not muscular enough to fit in now that nerds are out of fashion.
Beyond the fact that Xu and Leung are playing several characters, the film’s central conceit alludes to the reality of their friendship. The fact that they know each other offscreen makes their banter more believable, since they already had a rapport that two hired actors would have to work to bring across. Leung’s novelty rap song “Taco Loving Asian Guy” is real. Yet even if this were a documentary, it couldn’t capture the unvarnished truth of their experience. The film also fictionalizes their friendship: For instance, the home videos of Danny and Ryan playing as children were made with actors for “Extremely Unique Dynamic.”
As it nears the finish line, “Extremely Unique Dynamic” starts to feel a bit out of control. The number of incarnations of Danny and Ryan spirals (as if it were parodying “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” one of the most popular films ever made about Asian-Americans). They’re filmed by people filming people, in an extended chain. Past, present and possible alternate realities collide, in a montage of childhood videos and footage from their filmmaking. New incarnations of the characters manifest themselves, unmoored in time.
While complaining that a movie about two friends who get stoned and make a movie in a weekend is thin and flaky might miss the point, “Extremely Unique Dynamic” is too brief and fragmentary to achieve everything it sets out to do. The budget is too small for the directors to visualize all their ideas. Even as it strives for comedy, it’s rarely laugh-out-loud funny, and the script could’ve used a few more rewrites. If it can’t do justice to its larger ambitions, it remains an appealing blend of the goofy and heartfelt.
“Extremely Unique Dynamic” | Strand Releasing | Directed by Harrison Xu, Ivan Leung and Katherine Dudas Available on VOD Jan. 29th
