I picked Passenger Side as one of the 15 films i would watch during Cinequest this year as its the closest film festival to me, and they usually do a good job of picking both independent American films as well as noteworthy films of world cinema. Anyhow im glad they showed Bisonnette's "Passenger Ride". Although compared to Apatow, i think Bisonnette brings fresh comedy with a different style than Apatow. The writer/director does a good job setting up the mood using effective cinematography and a cool soundtrack. I liked the fact that they are basically driving across Los Angeles from one hot spot to another, the acting and writing linked up well as the director's brother was perfect for the role which seems to be somewhat biographical, and Adam Scott delivered one hell of a performance as the main character. The story is about Michael(Scott) giving his brother(Bisonette) rides around town to handle some things, the true reason kind of vague until later. Overall this was a film that was enjoyable, meaningful, and at times downright hilarious, hopefully it gets proper distribution.

With no CGI or big-name stars to suck you in, indie movies often have to fall back on the virtues of a decent script and a well-chosen soundtrack. Matthew Bissonnette's low-key comedy drama, Passenger Side, rides into town trailing some rather dubious "poster quotes" in its wake. I'm talking about the so-called reviewer who claims "No, it's not like Sideways; it's a lot better in fact".

See what he did there? The bracketing of this movie with Alexander Payne's 2004 comedy, suggests that Passenger Side is nothing short of a modern classic. After all, Sideways picked up the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, which even allowing for the stupidity of the Academy's voters still means something. But in my opinion, this likable story of a couple of LA slackers on the road to nowhere, isn't in the same league as any of writer/director Payne's best work.

Matthew Bissonnette's third full-length film stars his brother Joel as Tobey, the ex-junkie brother of failed novelist and world-class cynic Michael (played by Adam Scott). The movie begins with Michael in his Echo Park bachelor pad, trying to dodge a call from Joel, who needs a ride somewhere. Reluctantly he agrees to take his younger sibling to some job interviews, but the real purpose of their day-long car trip turns out to be a case of "cherchez la femme". Joel is desperate to locate Theresa (Robin Tunney), supposedly the love of his life, but the trail involves many diversions and misadventures.

Shot on HD video in just 14 days, Passenger Side also has a pleasingly retro feel about it. There's Mike's car, a 1975 BMW that remains a defiantly iPod-free zone. Mike has invested in a brand new cassette deck but has no cell phone — there will be no texting and definitely no "sexting" here. Instead, this movie features the rare sight of a character getting out of his car to use a public pay phone. What's most old-fashioned, of course, is the reliance on dialogue to drive what little plot there is. If you imagine that two guys driving round LA County promises pedal-to-the-metal scenes and frenetic action, think again.

As in Sideways and the more recent Easier with Practice, it's the wildly differing attitudes of the protagonists that create dramatic interest. In short, it helps if one guy is a loner and a misanthrope and the other more of a "glass half full" type. Mike, whose stock in trade is words, rarely says anything that isn't laced with several layers of sarcasm. Tobey, though he's obviously led a rather dissolute life, claims to be at a turning point now that he's joined the Scientologists. But as the brothers try to reconnect over their shared history, writer Bissonnette's message seems to be that it's Mike who needs to wake up to his failings.

The bulk of Passenger Side's 85-minute running time is taken up with the kind of bizarre incidents that you expect to see in road-trip comedies. Perhaps the critic who compared this with the work of Judd Apatow was referring to Mike's close encounter with a transsexual prostitute; a stop-off at an adult movie set; or the bleeding Mexican who's chopped off a couple of digits. Bissonnette stops short of giving these incidents the full gross-out treatment because there's a genuine humanity about his characters. Earlier in the film, the brothers bicker over the significance of "different strokes for different folks", but when Tobey criticises Mike for living in LA and not knowing any Spanish, his point is well made.

Although Passenger Side is smartly scripted and both leads convincingly inhabit their characters, it all feels a little aimless. The mystery element concerning Michael's fruitless phone calls to a (possible) girlfriend is kept largely in the background until the film's rather rushed conclusion. When we do finally get to meet Tobey's beloved Theresa, she only has one underwritten scene in which to explain her actions.

Matthew Bissonnette obviously laboured long and hard over honing his dialogue, choosing the locations and selecting music from the likes of Leonard Cohen, Wilco and Silver Jews. But the lack of structure in his story robs it of any real emotional impact and the non-stop sarcasm becomes a little wearing by the end. If Miles from Sideways were comparing this movie to a wine, I'm afraid it would be a Merlot rather than the much-prized Pinot Noir.

I attended the World Premiere of "Passenger Side" at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival. Written and directed by Matthew Bissonnette, "Passenger Side" stars Joel Bisssonnette and Adam Scott as two brothers reluctantly brought together on a mission to find...well, we're not quite sure. And, yes, Joel is Matthew's brother, so it would be hard to escape the autobiographical implications of Bissonnette's script.

Road movies are not that rare. What is novel, however, is one which takes place within the confines of one city. Here the location is Los Angeles.

"Passenger Side" is indie all the way -- in its look, sound, and quirky sensibilities. Nothing fancy here, just a character-driven narrative that is both poignant and witty, as one would expect from a story centered around two brothers driving around in a car for a day. The strength of a film like this lies in the impact of the sketch comedy represented by each stop along the way, and some vignettes are gut-bustingly hilarious.

What makes this film unique, though, is the way in which the filmmakers worked the music into the story. Unlike most movies where songs are added in post-production as they become available, Bissonnette actually crafted scenes around tunes that he already had in mind. It's as if the movie is a series of music videos, with the action set to the songs, not the other way around. I got chills when the pair reached the shores of the Pacific with Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" playing in the background ("you can hear the boats go by...").

As I watched this film, enjoying almost all of it, I thought of the kind of reactions it might elicit in others. True to form, they all seem to be present in these IMDb reviews. Yes, I agree- it's quirky as hell. But not off-puttingly so. Yes, it has some blunt sexual material but, again, not off-puttingly so. It's got some implied gore, but because it is essentially off-camera, it too is not offputting. There is no plot, so to speak. So what? It's a road movie. That's code for 'character-driven' and there are plenty of them here. The music is often terrific. It just seems to fit despite the recent tendency to use a song's lyrics to explain or underscore the point of a scene. That's a practice I find incredibly disrespectful to an audience and I'm sad to see it has entered the mainstream. It doesn't happen here.

The scene with the transsexual hooker is great. It's not exploitive; it doesn't moralize. It manages to have humor and warmth. The porn-shoot scene was surprising and eye-opening. Are the people involved in making and producing porn really so empty-headed? I didn't expect that quickie-sex movies would draw a cast and crew of Rhodes scholars, but this was really jolting. Again, very naturally portrayed here. The "Tupperware party" comment was hilarious.

This kind of movie is going to find its own niche audience. It reminded me of "Me and You and Everyone We Know," although I'm not sure I can tell you why. In any case PASSENGER SIDE worked for me. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to anybody, but if they asked, I'd tell them to see it.

Quite glad I took the time to watch this. The surface premise is quite light - two Canadian brothers with some issues to work out drive around Los Angeles County for a day looking for one of them's ex-girlfriend. As the day progresses first some of the deeper tensions emerge, the driver, elder brother Michael (Adam Scott)is a writer suffering some kind of writer's block on his second book and it's his 37th birthday, while the searcher, Tobey (Joel Bisonette)is a recovering addict who appears to have betrayed family trust in the past. The dialogue between the two leads is realistically the type of deprecatory, disparaging code often used between rival siblings, containing itself below the level of anger because along with the dearth of trust there is an accompanying freedom of communication. It will obviously be a bad day when these two do not understand each other and this is not that day. It becomes clear after a while that there is a mutual help process in action, that they are clearing life paths for one another and re-assessing their relationship and previous perceptions of abandonment.

Scott and Bisonette pull off the difficult dialogue effortlessly and and create engaging characters. Scott has the best of it as his driving task begins to open up for him a world around him that he doesn't seem to have been conscious of before - his first book had been based on the relationships among his family members "only made much worse, because that's what people want to read" and there's a sense that the day's experience will be good for him creatively. Bisonette plays the dark horse with the past, streetwise and possibly fearless in a kind of Stanley Cup way, ie not always involving a great deal of obvious intelligence, with enough pathos and uncertainty to convince as the recovering addict who doesn't really believe in programmes as much as (certain) people.

The anticlimactic dènoument can be seen far away without much difficulty but is anyway less immediately important than the bonding between the brothers. Unlikely to change the way you look at cinema or satisfy any hunger for action/suspense but scoring quite high on feelgood factor.

It's Michael Brown (Adam Scott)'s 37th birthday. He gets a call from his brother Tobey for a ride. He gives a ride but Tobey won't tell him the reason. Michael keeps hinting at his birthday but Tobey is obviously clueless. They go on a long meandering journey through L.A. encountering sketchy characters and weird situations. Tobey comes clean that he's searching for his drug-addicted girlfriend Theresa.

It's a lot of grumpy sarcastic indie banter. Adam Scott is usually good at it if he could have a comedian to bounce around the conversation. Joel Bissonnette is a perfectly good character actor but he provides no comedy. This has nothing truly funny. It's a lot of aimless complaining. It has a lot quirky without comedy. A transvestite jerking off in the car is sort of funny and Adam Scott tries his hardest. That's a small scene and it doesn't completely work anyways. It takes Michael a bit too long to challenge Tobey. This movie has lots of weird ideas but the comedy isn't there.

I thought the two brothers seemed to be more like gay lovers than brothers which destroyed the credibility of this sometimes affable sometimes sickening movie. Like a greeting card from the edge of what a human can tolerate in a day, it seems to deliver the goods and then backs away and starts doing cheap tricks, literally. Best avoid this ode to nowhere on a hot afternoon, it isn't that great to watch even as an art film. Sort of shades of a film Mat Damon did a few years ago about being lost in the desert, but this film has none of that other films drama. While the taxi driver character makes some valid points during the ride, the frame of the comments is to distracting for anything he says to have any real meaning. This film is to comedy/drama what Erasorhead is to action movies.

"Passenger Side" consists of two brothers (Adam Scott and the writer/director's brother, Joel Bissonnette) spend the entire movie on a roadtrip--driving aimlessly all over the greater Los Angeles area. Much of the time you have no idea why they are doing this nor what the one brother is looking for during this day. All you really do know is that they talk A LOT and meet lots of quirky, almost funny characters.

This film by Matt Bissonnette is the perfect hipster movie. It has a soundtrack filled with discordant music that most other folks would dislike. It has TONS of dialog that is extremely smug and self-aware (and no one actually ever speaks this way in real life). And, it has no real purpose...it just drifts aimlessly until the movie ends. None of these things are what others want in a film but hipsters, who generally revel in finding a film no one else understands or cares to understand, will love it because it's just a rather unenjoyable experience. The film has a few moments but never does anything to capitalize on them.

surreal story twists aside, which are enjoyable, and make the movie quite unique just for those, the highlight of the film is what seems like a 90 minute banter exchange between the 2 brothers.

Likely Adam Scott's best role. Maybe one of his first? Not the personality he's known for.

Joel Bissonette is much less known but the acting is good.

Matt Bissonette's writing and originality in this film instantly means wanting to see all of his other films.

The film is rewatchable if only to appreciate or criticize the plot choices.

Adam Scott seems to end up in a lot of LA-buddy-wannabe-art-films, that feel like a bunch of stoned writers and glad-handing insiders decide to all get together and do that script that Kevin's buddy Steve was shopping around, OMG do you know Raymond oh he'd be perfect, oh yeah i was at the opening for their new house, his girlfriend used to walk my old roommate's dog, she did makeup on that last Carrey flick, right? blah blah. Sometimes you get a great result; sometimes you get drivel like this. Every scene seems to interrupt the flow, and then after a while you realize the gratuitous interruptions that add nothing, they are in fact the body of said flow. They seemed to have been hoping for a robust picaresque, but instead got a pointless chaos where nothing really belongs. I hope that that Pilates'd-out MILF found her breakout role in the unconvincing tranny prostitute, or maybe the well-rested model who was somehow supposed to be believable as a waste case. Adam Scott is his usual charming snoot, but to what end? There is no good reason to watch this movie.

On top of all this, the music selection was probably the worst I've ever heard. Not a single track was worth even saving the rough sketch of, let alone burn to actual disc.

Somewhere there's a backyard BBQ of earnest young LA acting bucks, and another let's-do- this vehicle is bubbling up. I hope it won't suck like this one.