I find it touching, and yes, appropriate that The Baltimorons, the romcom set in Baltimore, features two human-shaped people. This is extremely rare in the romcom world, where putting a beautiful woman in glasses and having her occasionally trip over things is supposed to make her hopelessly undateable. But in The Baltimorons, which leans into the fact that it’s set in Baltimore in a big way (Natty Boh, Berger Cookies, crabs, you name it), the two romantic leads actually resemble people you’ve met.
Cliff (Michael Strassner, a Baltimorean who also co-wrote the script with director Jay Duplass) looks like any guy you might bump into at Rocket to Venus (yes, namechecked here): He’s in his 30s, bearded, with a bit of a paunch, a knit beanie, and a friendly, open face. Didi (Liz Larsen) is a post-menopausal woman—gasp!—an attractive one for sure, but not generally the stuff of romcom leads.
The film starts with Cliff attempting suicide in a very ham-handed fashion. (He tries to make a noose out of a belt; when he kicks away the stool, the belt promptly breaks, and he sighs in a “just my luck” sort of way.) I was a bit surprised by this opening, as the film had been billed as a comedy. Indeed, it is a comedy—a funny one at that—but definitely of the “lonely, disillusioned people finding each other” variety. Notably, it’s also set on Christmas Eve. If Planes, Trains, and Automobiles were a romcom, it might look a little something like this.
Cliff meets Didi after he breaks a tooth because she’s the only dentist who will see him on Christmas Eve. He’s something of an eager beaver—awkwardly trying to make her laugh as she works on his tooth, constantly filling the empty space with nervous patter. And Didi, a bit gruff and all business, seems alternately amused and annoyed with him.
“What’s the situation with needles?” he asks when he first arrives.
“The situation is that we use needles,” she replies.
While hopped up on nitrous oxide, he tells her she’s pretty, which she brushes off a bit too quickly. This is a woman who has not felt desirable in a while. Then Cliff accidentally wanders into the wrong room and overhears her on the phone with her adult daughter. Turns out, her ex, the daughter’s father, got married that morning at City Hall and is having a party that night to celebrate. The daughter apologetically asks Didi if she can bump their Christmas Eve plans to Christmas day. Cliff watches as Didi’s face falls.
Didi finishes putting in the bonding and tells Cliff to come back on Monday for the crown. This should be the end of their encounter—but the film comes up with a variety of fun, funny, and, okay, occasionally far-fetched ways to keep them together.
First Cliff’s car gets towed, which seems unlikely on Christmas Eve, and she has to drop him off at the impoundment lot, except it’s closed. From there, comic hijinks ensue. Then he insists on buying her dinner, especially once he finds out that there’s no food left at the party he was supposed to attend with his fiancée. (Yes, he has a fiancée. More on that in a bit.)
At first it’s clearly Cliff who wants to keep their flirtatious patter going. But at some point, after they wander around Hampden (Dylan’s Oyster Cellar, Rocket to Venus, and Miracle on 34th Street are all prominently featured) and crash her ex-husband’s wedding party, she’s the one who is energized and, yes, a bit turned on by their adventures.
They end up stealing her ex-husband’s crab boat and then he takes her to an improv show. You see, Cliff is an improv comic who hasn’t been able to find his groove since he gave up booze (he’s six month’s sober, presumably after the suicide attempt). But with Didi by his side, he’s able to recapture the magic of his “Baltimoron” character (who could be a cousin of Stavros Halkias’ Ronnie). This scene was one of my least favorite of the film, mostly because improv tends to make me twitch. Your mileage may vary, as the kids say.
So where is this fun, freewheeling day going? Are Cliff and Didi actually going to get it on? They sure have chemistry to burn.
I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that I felt a bit sorry for the hapless fiancée. She’s depicted as something of a downer, mostly because she’s worried that Cliff will try to hurt himself again. Can you really blame her? She seems like a bit of collateral damage in this mismatched love story.
Still, I really enjoyed the film. It often shows off Baltimore in its best light, giving us a hero shot of, among other landmarks, the Key Bridge, filmed just two months before it collapsed. It’s been a while since a film properly mythologized Baltimore. Seems like New York, Boston, and Chicago get all the play on that front. If you don’t get too frustrated trying to Google Map the various routes that Cliff and Didi take (from Federal Hill to Remington to Mt. Vernon to…Cherry Hill (?), not to mention a very roundabout route from Dylan’s to Rocket to Venus), it’s an absolute charmer.
An underdog romance for an underdog city. Baltimoreans (or Baltimorons, if you prefer) will fall in love with it.
Read my Q&A with writer/star Michael Strassner—who shares more on his upbringing, filming in Baltimore, and making the city a main character—here.