Most of the single-location movies I have come across have aimed to thrill. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window are some of the most beautifully crafted murder mysteries in existence. Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, Murder on the Orient Express, and Dog Day Afternoon are dripping with tension and drama. The Shining, The Thing, Misery, Krampus, and The Hateful Eight have expertly used a wintery landscape to generate suspense and horror. Snakes on a Plane, Train to Busan, and Greyhound have turned entire vehicles themselves into battlegrounds for survival. And the list just goes on. So, yes, it’s a little hard to find a single-location film that doesn’t get your heart pumping and your mind racing because being stuck in one place is terrifying. That said, Rocky Walls’ Dirty Laundry is a real change of pace. Is it any good? Let’s find out.
Rocky Walls’ Dirty Laundry is set in 1997, and it tells the story of best buddies Kyle Miller and Eric Hernandez. Kyle wants to start his own graphic design business with Eric because he is confident that their skills will help them make it big. Eric’s father wants his son to pursue education instead of “wasting his time” with Kyle. On top of that, Eric’s dad thinks that Kyle is a bad influence on Eric, and he wants him to cut all ties with Kyle. Since the friends meet at the local laundromat to chill out and exchange ideas, Eric is asked to give Kyle the lowdown before going away to focus on his studies. Kyle, who is unaware of all this, has already quit his job to propose his ideas for the future to Eric, and he arrives at the laundromat bubbling with enthusiasm. But, since neither of them know how to break the ice (even though they’ve been friends for many years), they keep beating around the bush. That’s when something supernatural happens and the laundromat turns into a truth-seeking machine, thereby forcing Eric and Kyle to put all their cards on the table.
Dirty Laundry is quite dialogue-heavy. It’s basically a very long conversation between two characters, which is punctuated by some very brief flashbacks. But thanks to Walls’ Richard Linklater-esque writing, the dialogue never feels boring. Everything that Kyle and Eric talk about genuinely feels like stuff kids from the ‘90s would discuss. And if you are someone who has grown up through that period, that can feel oddly nostalgic. The dialogue is chock full of references to movies by John Hughes, Rob Reiner, and Frank Darabont, which only adds to the nostalgia factor. I particularly liked the arc that The Princess Bride goes through, as they initially see it as a film that guys don’t watch with other guys, and by the end of the movie, as Eric and Kyle embrace their newfound definition of masculinity, it loses that tag. It’s wholesome and educational. Now, while all that can seem pretty basic, the writing in the final scene is what makes it one of the best movies on friendship and love. That exchange between Kyle and Eric has so many levels to it. There’s trepidation, empathy, curiosity, and above all, acceptance, and Rocky Walls does such a splendid job of balancing these emotions that you can’t help but get a little emotional.
The filmmaking in Dirty Laundry is competent. Rocky Walls doesn’t exactly swing for the fences to make the most of the singular location that the movie is set in. If you have watched any of the aforementioned single-location films, you must’ve noticed how their directors have tried to extract every droplet of potential that that venue has to offer. You get a lot of crazy camera angles. Sometimes the place itself morphs and warps in weird ways. And that environment becomes a character that’s as pivotal to the narrative as the human characters in the film. But Dirty Laundry isn’t that kind of film. It aims to achieve a sense of comfort and calm through its aesthetics and visual storytelling, and, in my opinion, Rocky and his team successfully deliver on that promise. The song choices are pretty good. The pacing is decent. The budgetary limitations are evident but never all that prominent, probably because of Rocky’s ambition and his team’s ability to execute his visions. That brings us to that final scene. The use of light and shadow is simply brilliant. I always keep complaining that so many massively budgeted films do shot-reverse-shot in the most boring fashion imaginable. And here’s Rocky Walls showing all of them up. A huge round of applause for the team for that scene alone.
Dirty laundry depends a lot on Mitchell Wray and Charlie Schultz. While Wray has done a few short films and shown up in other projects, this is Schultz’s feature film debut (at least that’s what IMDb tells me). But they more than make up for their lack of experience with their raw talent. Both of them have such an amazing screen presence. And I don’t think you need me to convince you that their chemistry is fantastic, because it’s that obvious. From the first scene to the last, they feel like they’ve known each other for decades; they’ve matured during this time period, and now they are ready to begin a new chapter of their relationship. Their expression of their characters’ apprehensions and trust in each other always seems genuine and not phoned-in. I think I need to mention that because I keep coming across so many teenage dramas nowadays where actors have been hired based on their social media following or some other arbitrary parameter that has nothing to do with acting, and the ultimate product is usually trash. Meanwhile, here are two talented people casually delivering such great performances. I hope Mitchell Wray and Charlie Schultz get more opportunities to showcase their talent than the latest influencer that the internet is obsessing over.
It’s a shame that I can’t really discuss the major theme of Dirty Laundry because it’s spoiler-y in nature and comes up at the very end of the film (yes, in that last scene that I keep gushing about). But if you’re observant enough and if you have rejected every regressive definition of manhood and love, then I am certain that you’ll see it coming. I mean, even someone as boneheaded as me kept wondering whether the movie was building up to what I thought it was building up to, and it was satisfying to realize that I was right. That’s a roundabout way of saying that Dirty Laundry is mandatory viewing for all, especially if you and your friend are at a similar juncture as the one that Kyle and Eric were at. Given how the internet has rotted and regressed the minds of the younger generations, I hope they take a moment to detoxify their thoughts by watching this film and learn how to be open-minded and accepting when it comes to the topic of friendship.