Heartland: Buddy Solitaire

Brandon J. Sornberger plays Buddy Solitaire, a self-loathing — and deservedly loathed — comedian who takes a job as a counselor at a psychiatric institution. If that sounds like the opening bit to a set, that’s because Buddy certainly sees it that way. Almost from the day he meets the small group of troubled people, whose issues range from meek schizophrenia to hyper aggression, he features them as fodder for his stand-up act.

You start to wonder if Buddy took the gig for the extra cash or simply because he needed material.

It’s a vibrant performance by Sornberger in a film that doesn’t take many pains to avoid predictability. Given the brief bit of information given above, without even seeing the film you can readily surmise that the brittle comedian will eventually warm up to his fractured wards, and even find that they (*sniff*) have as much to teach him as vice-versa.

Writer/director Kuang Lee, helming his first feature film, creates an interesting and disparate set of characters, then gives them the most obvious things possible to do.

Sally Kirkland plays Buddy’s mom, Hannah Bales, who was a big-deal stand-up comedienne herself back in the day, and has directed all her built-up bile and resentment toward her son. She can’t even talk her way into a two-bit comedy club without buying a ticket and being tossed out by the bouncer.

Her and Buddy’s scenes together are a string of horrid insults and miserable co-dependence. We keep waiting for the love underneath the mountain of hate to shine through, but either the pile is too high or there never was anything under there in the first place.

Buddy’s compassionate girlfriend, Vanessa (Dominique Razon), works at the psych center and helps him get a job there, since he’s not generating much buzz or cash on the late-night club circuit. This, despite the misgivings of the oddly coiffed director, Tyson (Garret Sato). Buddy’s assignment is to teach the patients comedy as a way to improve their social skills.

Some of the patients are more interesting than others. The most compelling is Bugg, a timid fellow played by Shaun Clay who is haunted by ghosts telling him what to do. Bugg had dreams of doing stand-up even before Buddy showed up, and they begin a pleasant mentor/mentee relationship.

Things are much rockier with Miss Liao (Leanne Lei) — that’s what everyone calls her — a former Chinese mail-order bride who burned down her abusive husband’s house. She sits by herself drawing a lot, occasionally raising her eyes long enough to hurl abuse or spit in someone’s face. And that’s a good day.

There’s also Zoe (Mirela Burke), a quiet and non-descript sort; Elliot (Jason McBeth), a shell-shocked Afghanistan vet who can barely talk to his fiancée; and Oliver (Matt Steele), whose crippling anxiety keeps him arranging plastic silverware and demanding chicken salad, which no one seems to want to give him.

The story draws a small circle of these character bumping into each other, occasionally abrading some skin and eventually drawing closer. The main tension comes from Vanessa announcing she’s pregnant, and Buddy trying to ingratiate himself with Stephan (P.J. Ochlan), a showbiz sort whose exact vocation is left vague, but with the ability to advance Buddy’s career if he so deems, in between Buddhist chanting and casual cruelty.

“Buddy Solitaire” is a very showbiz-y movie, made by people in L.A. who want to make bigger movies and see this as a vehicle to get there. Sornberger and Kirkland wring some pathos out of their characters, and Clay has a pensive charisma as Bugg. The rest of it needed some more workshopping before going in front of a live audience.