‘Sh*thouse’ Review: Cooper Raiff’s Sincere, Maddeningly Relatable College Dramedy Is Everything You Love About Indie Film

You ever watch a trailer and say to yourself, “Yes, this movie is aggressively my jam”? Untempered expectations have a way of relegating a great film to a good film and a good film to a mediocre film. But Cooper Raiff’s directorial debut Shithouse, the 2020 Grand Jury Prize Winner at SXSW, is the rare movie that exceeds even the loftiest of expectations.

Now streaming on VOD, this absorbing indie dramedy tells the simple story of a lonely college freshman (Alex, portrayed by writer/director Cooper Raiff) navigating the frightening uncertainty of collegiate life. Trying to step out of his comfort zone, Alex attends a party at Shithouse fraternity where he embarks on an adventurous night with the witty yet emotionally unavailable Maggie (Dylan Gelula in a truly superb performance). The first half of the film feels like a Gen Z homage to Richard Linklater’s walk and talk classic Before Sunrise, while the second half skillfully explores the fallout from their night. The emotionally vulnerable Alex believes their connection is the start of something special, while the more pragmatic Maggie looks at their escapades as just another in a long line of Saturday nights.

The juxtaposition between these two characters organically drives the film’s narrative. Alex feels overwhelmed by the collage experience and is crestfallen to discover that the one connection he made was fool’s gold. Maggie, on the other hand, is like, “Bro, you gotta relax.” Shithouse captures the painfully relatable feeling of watching everyone glide through life as you stumble to take your first steps. The film deftly depicts the awkward clumsiness of college with inexhaustible sincerity as it sets its razor-sharp focus on the wonderful, fleeting moment in time when both everything and nothing seem possible.

The story of how 23-year-old Cooper Raiff’s feature length debut made it to the big screen is almost as impressive as the film itself. The press notes provided by IFC reveal that Raiff put together an earlier version of the movie “with great friends and stolen equipment,” and “in a burst of bravery, tweeted the link to Jay Duplass.” While Duplass helped get the project off the ground, Raiff embraced the “fortune favors the bold” ethos of indie filmmaking by reaching out to the actress who would eventually portray Maggie (Dylan Gelula) on Instagram.

“We didn’t have a casting director so a lot of it was me texting friends ‘Hey do you want to be in a movie I’m making?” Raiff said. “For Maggie, I direct messaged Dylan on Instagram and mentioned the name Jay Duplass about fifteen times. After Dylan got on board, I begged her to direct message Logan [Miller] on Instagram. For Mom, I begged Jay to ask Amy [Landecker] to read the script.”

It’s no surprise that a Duplass is involved in such a sincere, comedically agile film like Shithouse. The movie evokes the work of mumblecore trailblazers like Mark and Jay Duplass, Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, and Andrew Bujalski. The film’s acute depiction of nascent adulthood uncertainty feels like a precursor to the deliberate post-college aimlessness of Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha and Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming.

If you’re a fan of indie filmmaking, Shithouse is a movie you’ll want to watch, and Cooper Raiff is a name you should go out of your way to remember.

Shithouse is now available to rent on iTunes, Amazon, and more.