Listen Up Philip is a depressing, 1980’s New York throwback that seeks to showcase a “miserable guy who makes the worst choice every time,” in a film that covers the “worst period of the lives for all the characters” involved. Oh, and it’s a distinctively shot, indie film starring Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Jonathan Pryce and Krysten Ritter. You should know right now whether or not you want to see it.

Listen Up Philip premiered at Sundance this past year, and was among the festival’s favorites, explaining its presence at Sundance’s Next Fest, a three day LA-based film festival with several other Sundance originated movies, all followed by Q&A’s with the filmmakers, actors and the filmmaker’s inspiration, a neat concept.

That meant that last week anyone was who in attendance at the gorgeous theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles got to witness a conversation between writer-director Alex Ross Perry (The Color Wheel), star Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Moonrise Kingdom) and author Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction).

Alex Ross Perry read American Psycho in High School and it blew his mind, and started his love of reading, which had been beaten down by school and being forced to read. From there, he read all of Bret Easton Ellis’ work, and the books he read and loved are his guiding force in the movies he enjoys making. This is clear with Listen Up Philip, a film that feels very much like a novel thanks to its shifting perspectives, narrator, and an authorial setting.

Listen Up Philip concerns the miseries of two different authors separated by generations, in the young Philip Lewis Friedman and the venerated Ike Zimmerman, and does so in such detail and authenticity, that it makes one wonder if Alex is an author himself. But no: he merely chose a creative occupation that was isolated. Since he knew nothing about painting, that meant these characters would be writers.

Jason Schwartzman was drawn to the project and the character because it appealed to him to “speak his mind” and play a character who (only) makes mistakes. That’s what was fun about playing the character, to him. It rubbed off on Jason, because in the middle of shooting, he considered mugging an annoying guy with a lot of keys in the city.

Bret Easton Ellis hailed the film as “unique” (as the moderator mentioned, these characters don’t ask for sympathy), complimenting its characters, and adeptly pointing out that Philip was like the dark side of Jonathan Ames from Bored to Death. He noted that the scenes with the publishers felt especially real, loved the authentic book jackets of Ike Zimmerman’s various novels (a favorite part of mine!), and he thought that perhaps Zimmerman’s character was based on Philip Roth. Any likenesses were accidental, as Alex mostly just wanted to play with the kind of characters that are able to “get away with anything,” while looking at the Norman Mailer generation of authors.

There were no computers or phones on the film (which only became problematic when shooting the scenes in the publishing office). Alex doesn’t understand the necessity of using technology in storytelling, and was most influenced by films of the 1980’s (or taking place in the 1980’s), like We Won’t Grow Old Together and Squid and the Whale, so he wanted to retain that look and feel.

Listen Up Philip is narrated by Eric Bogosian, adding another layer to its literary conceits. As Perry notes, it wasn’t voice over, but narration. He tried to use him only when it “enriched” the storyline and offered an opportunity to provide truth and more information to the proceedings. Alex wanted it to be essential, rather than gratuitous. I thought the Narrator provided some of the best moments in the film.

For pre-production, Jason Schwartzman went to New York three weeks early to get to know Alex, as they went to book stores together, and went on adventures. How awesome is that? That’s the kind of work I want to do: become friends with people.

While it was oft-remarked how awful these characters are, Bret actually had some sympathy for these characters in the end (I did for Ritter and Moss’ characters, but that was likely intentional). Ellis doesn’t see Listen Up Philip as a blanket criticism of writers, just these two particular characters.

Alex argues that the film isn’t about writers, but about lonely men and what makes someone miserable. He uses that prism to look at two men and how they affect other people.

When asked how he was able to secure financing from a film that was presumably a tough sell, Alex was uncomfortable in answering. Then he admitted that they found a rich European guy (of course), who doesn’t see things in black or white. Alex lauded him as being a part of a more intelligent culture, clearly a dig at Hollywood and maybe everyone in the audience.

Production on the film took 25 days, which is impressive considering LUP had 45 locations and 70 speaking parts. The cast and crew took 5 weeks off in the middle of the shoot so they could get a more autumnal New York feel for two days.

Then it became time to gush about the actors not present, in Jonathan Pryce, an actor Schwartzman had always admired, and Elisabeth Moss, who was universally beloved. She was lauded as “relaxed, casual, seamless, amazing.” The compliments were well-deserved for both of them. The best moment of the entire film is this INCREDIBLE moment when Philip leaves Ashley alone in their, now her, apartment, and the camera stays on her face for what feels like minutes, and her character runs the gauntlet of emotions, displaying how conflicted and complex her character is. I actually gasped out loud.

Alex wondered if Bret got to meet his heroes. “The only good thing about being well known” is that you get to meet people, and your heroes. Alex admits to being fascinated by the connectivity of people with communities, and how those connections and meetings are made, a theme in Listen Up Philip.

Bret was quite complimentary of the film throughout the evening, calling Perry’s outlook refreshing, because it wasn’t “earnest or sentimental.”

Perry mentions that his editor told him this “movie can only be made by a young man,” to which he and Ellis agree: that’s what makes it work.

Alex found it exciting to write characters that affect characters in their absence, like switching perspectives in a novel. The movie is ostensibly all Philip’s, but actually Ike and Elisabeth Moss’ character (Ashley Kane) each get their own narrative threads from their own POV. At first it’s almost jarring, and out of place, but they’re some of the best parts of the movie, because it means more Pryce and Moss.

In talking about Bret’s motivations to write, he admits that he “doesn’t feel pressured to write,” that he writes when he wants to, primarily during emotional times

In response to the “look” of the film (the movie has no blue or reds), Alex admits that he wanted to make “the next great brown movie.” He wants to live in that world. And for 108 minutes, the audience gets to.

Listen Up Philip isn’t an easy movie, and honestly, I didn’t enjoy it. It’s filled with hateful, vindictive, awful people, and the proceedings feel pretentious. But I definitely appreciated the filmmaking craft and attention to detail that went into making the film, as Alex Ross Perry is clearly a burgeoning and worthwhile voice in the industry. LUP is also worth watching solely for the performances, as Schwartzman, Pryce and Moss are at the top of their considerable games. I love Krysten Ritter, and she’s also great, but she’s the only character who felt undeveloped, and under-used, as out of place in the movie as her character was in the world she unfortunately found herself in.

Thanks to a few Hollywood screeners, a lot of gift cards and unemploymentmy independent nature, I’ve never watched more Oscar nominated films than this year (and I’ll pretend that matters). In this age of scrutiny, controversy and Twitter, every movie has been hated on, drug through the mud or found wanting (some more deservedly than others). In fact, each movie’s director, producers, stars, and DP’s all likely feel (DP’d) a lot like Rufus Sewell’s character at the end of (best movie of all-time contender) A KNIGHT’S TALE right now:

But for a few minutes, can we check our attitudes at the door, pump the brakes on our eternal desire to make callous judgments without knowing what the fuck we’re talking about, and just talk about the movies themselves? Can we be a mindless drone in THE LEGO MOVIE (here’s one prediction: Best Animated Film winner, 2015) and accept that everything is indeed, awesome, and relish in the fact that this was one of the best years for films in recent memory (says someone every year), and dig that people get so heated up about movies? Sit back, pop open the Andre, and I promise, I won’t say awesome again for the entirety of this post.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

5. Julia Roberts, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY: I almost feel bad for Julia (and her painfully obvious crowns in that awesome photo), and every other incredible actor (Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Ewan MacGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Shepard, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin and whatever Juliette Lewis is) that somehow got roped into the hate-filled, manipulative, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? wannabe that is AUGUST: somewhere in Oklahoma. But then I remember how unfortunate a movie-going experience the film was, and I can’t help but be mad at them. Julia Roberts was probably the best of the bunch in a role that potentially foreshadows the next act of her career in movies (should she choose to accept it) as a real, approachable, tortured (but no less pretty) woman, finding herself back where she started (after the OCEANS movies, preggers and EAT PRAY YUCK), as the every-woman.

4. Sally Hawkins, BLUE JASMINE: The next four are fairly interchangeable (because they’re all terrific), but I’ll snub Sally Hawkins just like Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine continually snubs Hawkins’ Ginger. BLUE JASMINE is an unholy cocktail of a bunch of awful people (kinda like AUGUST and nigh every other movie that came out this year), and while Ginger screws up just as often as any of them, and you’re constantly wondering why she puts up with the mess that is Jasmine, overbearing bf Chili (Bobby Canavale, future Oscar winner in 2018) and how she keeps kids, boyfriends and a working class job together, but you never doubt how real this character is. It could’ve been a caricature, but instead, she’s heartbreaking. When Louis C.K. even treats you like shit, it’s time for a good cry.

3. June Squibb, NEBRASKA: I love June Squibb to death in Alexander Payne’s underrated NEBRASKA. Squibb is hilarious as the cranky, tough-as-hell firecracker of an 80 year old housewife, and the idea that the scene where she flashes her knickers at former would-be flames at the cemetery could be HER Oscar clip is proof that the world rules in some respect. But, the thing is, any 84 year old woman supplied with her lines would get buzz because of how startling and refreshing an image it is to see on screen. But June’s charisma and scene stealing presence is all her own.

2. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 YEARS A SLAVE: And now I regret doing rankings entirely, because things like this will happen, where I automatically become an asshole. Probably one of the cooler stories that is impossible to get tired of is Lupita Nyong’o’s casting and how she got discovered for Patsey. She was absolutely fearless and mined new depths of sorrow, and like the movie as a whole, makes you want to kill yourself. For art.

1. Jennifer Lawrence, AMERICAN HUSTLE: You either loved or hated or didn’t get AMERICAN HUSTLE, but anyone who saw it HAD to be in awe of whatever the fuck J-Law was doing on screen. In my textual fellatio/review for PopInsomniacs, this is what I said about her performance as the lunatic Rosalyn:

“Jennifer Lawrence breaks acting. She summons new depths of sheer insanity…she’s manipulative, sexy, unpredictable, dangerously naive and stupid. I found myself giggling with glee at each of her scenes, or the opposite: just speechless and giddy with her surely Oscar nominated performance. The only thing scarier than her character is how talented this woman is, and she’s still just 23 years old. Watch her song-and-dance routine to Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” and try to keep your head from exploding.”

Without question, watching her performance was the most fun I had a movie theater in 2013, and sometimes, I like enjoying myself at the movies.

NEXT: Best Supporting Actor, ranked in order of attractiveness.