A FILM ABOUT MAKING A VIDEO–
ARE THEY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS??!?!!?

Depending on your level of patience and maturity, you may or may not have serious problems with Serious People. It’s probably best not to take it seriously. The concept has potential for comedy and some payoff—eventually. But it takes a long time to get there; otherwise there ain’t much “there” there. The set-up is that Pasqual, a man who shoots videos with his associate Raul, has a problem and comes up with a solution that may be risky. The good news is that they have the great opportunity to shoot a video starring rap superstar Drake. The bad news is that it’s scheduled for the same week he is determined to be in the hospital to welcome his first-born child, borne by Christine, who’s also seen on screen. Prospective papa Pasqual can’t be in two places at the same time, so his idea is to be involved with the planning but hire a look-alike to fill in for him as the director. He puts an ad on Craigslist, auditions guys, chooses Miguel—the closest to a clone—and starts to coach him, which takes up much of his time, leaving the miffed mother-to-be alone a lot. (Yes, she was really pregnant, and the movie originally was planned as a documentary about approaching parenthood.)

Casting Call

There’s a kind of voyeuristic / reality-TV / “fly on the wall” sensibility here that suggests a “Let’s film everything that happens” mentality. But sometimes the fly on the wall can die of boredom rather than bug spray. If the filmmakers’ goal was to present a bunch of people who don’t listen to each other well… well, they succeeded. But it’s taxing to listen to what they say when they’re not listening to each other. And there’s no “ART” in “inARTiculate.” Of course, it’s a satire, but sometimes mocking annoying people is just annoying—especially when it’s s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out for the length of a feature film, as opposed to the length of a sketch on Saturday Night Live. The sometimes mind-numbingly glacial pace of the banal, bland, shallow dialogue—with simple phrases repeated over and over once again, one more time, if not the identical, exact, precise same words, then most likely probably possibly perhaps maybe something similar, close, near… you get the idea. But some will find it a hoot. Some movie viewers may recognize the personalities and vocabulary levels to be very much like people they’ve known. I feel sorry for those movie viewers.

Christine Yuan and Pasqual Gutierrez

Ben Mullinkosson shares writing and directing credit with Pasqual Gutierrez, who plays Pasqual, real-life husband of Christine Yuan, who plays Christine. Raul (RJ) is played by Raul Sanchez, and the loose cannon Miguel is played by Miguel Huerta.

Miguel Huerta and Pasqual Gutierrez

If you made a drinking game of gulping a shot each time the male characters addressed each other as “Bro” or “Man,” you’d be drunk well before the movie was half over. Here’s a verbatim excerpt of a dialogue exchange during which Pasqual learns that the video has to be shot in February. Warning: Skip over this if you are offended by use (and overuse) of the “F” word (and we don’t mean “February”):

“When they tryin’ to shoot, bro?”
“February.”
“February?”
“Fuck, man. I’m having my fucking kid in…”
“Who gives a fuck, bro?”
“Bro, I told you about this already.”
“I know, but—We gotta do this. This is Drake, bro.”

RJ Sanchez and Miguel Huerta

There’s another ubiquitous four-letter word that comes up. Here’s a bit from a monologue wherein Pasqual tries to convince his partners that the ruse will work because not much technical know-how is needed for Miguel to pass himself off as an experienced director. The verbiage is not quite on the level of Shakespeare or Chekhov:

“He doesn’t need to know that much shit, bro. It’s easy. This shit’s easy. Anybody can do this shit, bro. These fools are fucking idiots, man.”

And it continues on (and on and on) like that. Don’t expect expectant mama Christine to be concise and non-rambling, but instead of curse words sprinkled throughout her sentences, her lines can resemble a languid variety of teen-speak, formerly known as Valley Girl Syndrome:

“Yesterday I felt really… big where… well… I don’t understand how I’m gonna have… like… eight more weeks of being pregnant or… like… whatever.”

Christine Yuan and Pasqual Gutierrez

She pouts a lot, too, but does have a couple of memorable lines. When Pasqual is constantly checking his phone (or talking on it) as she’s trying to spend time with him—feeling ignored in general—she says she wishes she were his phone so that he’d touch her regularly. Later, when they resentfully realize they’ve spent hours driving to a medical appointment and must pay a considerable fee for what turns out to be 90 seconds of perfunctory comments, she suggests they steal some cotton balls and office odds and ends to make it “worth their while.”

Pasqual Gutierrez

The real laughs finally come close to the end, if you’re willing to wait and wade through the squabbles and fretting and acting oh-so-cool. Miguel gets a taste of being a big-shot film director and starts to strut. The day of the video arrives and so does Miguel, masquerading as Pasqual. But instead of saying as little as possible to avoid suspicion, the opposite happens: he gets on a roll with the role-playing. His overconfidence takes over as he tries to take over the proceedings, cluelessly causing mayhem and resentments. The best-laid plans of mice and bros cause woes. And so it goes.

Pasqual Gutierrez, Miguel Huerta and RJ Sanchez

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Serious People
Memory/ Tribeca Films
86 minutes | USA
in limited theatrical release
with a nationwide VOD release on December 16, 2025

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