At first glance, Kris Rey’s “Trash Mountain,” the deeply felt dramedy about two siblings whose hoarder father dies and leaves them having to sort through the rubble of his life, could seem like countless other movies you’ve seen before. But the closer you look, the more you begin to see something quietly moving and mirthful emerge from within its familiar narrative beats.
The key? Star and co-writer Caleb Hearon.
For those who are unfamiliar, Hearon has steadily emerged as one of the funniest, most incisive voices in comedy working today. In addition to being a killer stand-up and storyteller — whose recent special, “Model Comedian,” was a true gem of the form — he’s also a naturally witty and earnest performer, making the most of a couple of moments in “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” But there has always been a sense that he’s deserving of bigger parts that make full use of his talents.
That moment is now here with “Trash Mountain.”
This film sees Hearon not just starring, but writing alongside his co-writer Ruby Caster, to wonderful results. Drawing from much of Hearon’s personal life surrounding the sudden death of his father, it has him bringing his same razor-sharp comedic voice and also stretching his writing muscles to tell a more sincerely bittersweet story of familial loss. Even as it can feel familiar in its broad narrative strokes, occasionally playing like a modern riff on “Garden State,” Hearon instills the film with such deep feeling and hilarious bite that you end up falling in love with it all the same. It may be called “Trash Mountain,” but there are plenty of emotional and comedic treasures awaiting all who make it to the top.
The first treasure comes early when we meet Gavin (Hearon), an energetic and playful emcee of a drag show living in Chicago, blissfully wandering the city with his friends. When his sister, Abbi (an excellent Zooey Deschanel), calls to inform him that their father has died, we cut to a beautiful wide shot that creates the first of many effective juxtapositions between comedy and tragedy, joy and sadness.
Because the tricky thing is that, in addition to Gavin having left rural Missouri to go to Chicago, his father was also a hoarder and an alcoholic who had shut himself off from the world. Thus, in addition to navigating this unexpected grief, there are the many logistical challenges he, his sister, and his sister’s husband (a low-key yet great Kyle Marvin) will have to wade through.
The way the trio bounces off each other feels real, with uproarious comedic lines coming out fast and furious before this coping mechanism gives way to a growing melancholy — and not just over the death in the family. They’ve drifted apart in some respects, but they also are deeply connected, with the fractures in their family also serving as the ties that bind them together.
As delicately shot by cinematographer Andy Rydzewski, who previously lensed the even more chaotic dramedy “Friendship,” everything feels intimate and lived-in, just as he finds great uses of wide shots throughout. From the moments where Gavin begins to connect with a former Seattle academic (a playful yet poetic Jaboukie Young-White) who has now found happiness in this small community, to a fireside chat that he has with his sister where his armor begins to crack, you’re just so immersed in gentle, painful rhythms of it all.
It’s a film that doesn’t shy away from wrestling with death, capturing its inevitable suddenness and the strange limbo period you’re in afterwards, though it’s also bursting with all the authentic messiness of life.
We see how both family and the various characters in the community, even when well-intentioned, can be more than a little chaotic. At the same time, you get the deep sense that Hearon, for all he is poking fun at the situation and his own story, deeply loves all of the people in it. Even as he delivers plenty of withering jokes that earn genuine laughs before the film gives way to tears, when all falls into place, he finds an enduring wisdom all his own.