Colin Burgess is having a bit of a moment with the buzzy success of the micro-indie “Dad & Step-Dad” and this week’s release of the truly funny and clever “Free Time,” a movie that uses Burgess’ on-screen energy perfectly. Ryan Martin Brown’s film jumps into the oft-visited waters of the quarter-life crisis but it does so with its own comic voice, one that produces laughs in the very first scene and doesn’t really let up for this film’s tight 78-minute runtime. This is one of the better indie comedies in a long time, enjoyable from minute one until the final frame, and deceptively insightful about the structure of the modern world, one that encourages us to do more with our free time but doesn’t offer much guidance to what exactly we should be doing.
In the phenomenal opening scene, Drew (Burgess) goes to his superior at his job to express his dissatisfaction with being more of a data entry employee than a data analysis one. What starts as a conversation that feels like it will lead to a new position or maybe even a promotion ends with Drew quitting on the spot, aggravating his boss by leaving him without an employee. Drew takes his stuff and goes back to the apartment he shares with a clickbait-writing roommate, having no idea what he’s going to do next.
Drew’s efforts to figure out that last part is the driving narrative force of “Free Time.” He quickly realizes that his friends have lives that include jobs, leaving him little to do during the day—a bit where his roommate’s girlfriend yells at him for how often he’s watched the same movie on DVD (this time with commentary) is excellent. As he faces more people in his life who are stunned that he quit a good job in this economic climate, Drew starts to realize that he made a mistake. When the band he’s in shifts focus to country, leaving Drew’s keyboard playing behind, it’s another blow.
From art to fiction to motivational speakers, we’re constantly told to make the most of our free time, but what exactly are people like Drew supposed to do with all that freedom? How do you make your dreams come true when you don’t really have interesting dreams? Some of the direction is a little too loose, and the non-stop piano score grows a little grating, but Brown’s script is wonderfully natural and organic, allowing Burgess to drift through the film in a way that’s consistently fascinating. Whether he’s completely blowing a potential hook-up (Jessie Pinnick, so great in “Princess Cyd”) or aggressively trying to get his job back, Burgess is perfect here, never leaning too hard into what could have been a really mannered performance. We all know guys like Drew. We may have even been guys like Drew.
“Free Time” is a funny character study for about an hour before it becomes something even more remarkable that I couldn’t possibly spoil. Suffice to say, this movie has some surprises up its sleeves, and they unfold in a way that really drives home the theme that free time can be more emotionally costly than we’ve been led to believe.
