Cult American indie filmmaker Andrew Bujalski’s newest film Results begins with Danny, played by Kevin Corrigan, wondering into the Power 4 Life gym that’s run by Guy Pearce’s character Trevor. Trevor is the type of character that irks on his first impression, reeling off an “eyes on the prize” spiel about fitness to Danny in an attempt to sign him up to the gym.

On the other hand, Danny doesn’t exactly leave Trevor with the best first impression either. When he asks him why it is that he wants to join the gym, his answer is “so that he’ll be able to take a punch”. As if taking a punch is a foregone conclusion in his mind for what’s coming next in his life.

Trevor signs Danny up to the gym and leaves. That’s when we meet Kat, Cobie Smulders, a young instructor at the gym with a short temper who’s burning herself out with her clients and workload. She pressures Trevor to give her Danny as a client and he acquiesces, leading to the three characters stories intertwining throughout the rest of the film.

This is the first film where Bujalski has stepped away from the mumblecore style that has been his trademark up until this point. If you’re not aware of the term, mumblecore is basically a name that was given to a group of films and film makers over the course of the early 2000’s. Films that were generally filmed hand-held, featured unprofessional actors and had slice of life style scripts, often times with improvisation as a main point.

It’s still an intimate small scale character study, it’s just that with this film he’s employed a static camera, more well-known actors, a more traditional script and a few subtle film techniques, like screen wipes, for example. This has tended to be the way that many of these filmmakers have been transitioning over. Filmmakers like the Duplass Brothers, who made a few features in Hollywood with a similar style to their first films but with more well-known comedic actors like John C Reilly, Jonah Hill and Jason Segel, and have now moved onto television with their HBO comedy togetherness. Or like, Greta Gerwig, who teamed up with Noah Baumbach a few years ago to create the irresistible Frances Ha, or her former collaborator Joe Swanberg, who has gone from making a handful of mostly improvised films a year to a succession of well received features with Hollywood stars.

There are great performances all around by each of the three main actors. I was really happy to see Kevin Corrigan getting a role he could sink his teeth into. You probably don’t recognize his name but I’d bet that you’d recognize his face if you saw him. He’s one of those character actors who has been stealing scenes for years without getting a lead role. Here he’s one of three leads in my opinion, even if his screen time is less than Guy Pearce or Cobie Smulders’. He plays Danny in a way that, at first, makes the viewer skeptical about his motives and whether or not he is in fact a weirdo as Guy Pearce’s character states early in the film. But as the film plays out, he’s slowly revealed as this romantic, capra-esque character. Almost like a modern Mr Deeds.

Guy Pearce makes me happy in this movie cos he’s playing a character that someone like me is almost pre-programmed to dislike, but I don’t. Trevor talks like he’s walked out of a fitness equipment infomercial and can be over-earnest to the point of irritation but he’s so single-minded about life that it’s endearing. Kat calls him out on his bullshit a few times throughout the movie.

Results is absolutely worth watching for the performances alone but manages to deliver with a well-paced script and assured directing from Bujalski.

-Nathan Kearney