'Wild Canaries' Trailer: A Brooklyn Screwball Comedy Marries a Murder Mystery
The upcoming comedy Wild Canaries manages to be both of-the-moment and decidedly old school. The film, which hits theaters in limited release on Feb. 25, is a hybrid romantic comedy and murder mystery, set in gentrifying Brooklyn and hearkening back to the screwball rom-coms of the ’30s and ’40s. It’s also a funny, exaggerated portrait of a real-life couple: Lawrence Michael Levine wrote, directed, and stars in the film, playing opposite his wife and producer, Sophia Takal.
Levine and Takal play Noah and Barri, a Brooklyn couple whose lives are rocked when Barri discovers their elderly neighbor dead of an apparent heart attack. Or could it have been something more sinister? The duo, along with a roommate played by Alia Shawkat, get pulled into a wild murder mystery mystery. A delightful romp through north Brooklyn’s seedier locales ensues — and reminds us that living in New York means having some really weird, potentially evil neighbors (which is where co-stars Jason Ritter and Kevin Corrigan come into the picture).
Levine (V/H/S 2) wrote the film as he and Takal (VHS) were approaching their wedding, and they channeled many of their worries about the coming nuptials into the story. Levine also wanted to write a modernized love letter to the films that he grew up watching, such as the Katharine Hepburn–Spencer Tracy comedies, The Thin Man, Bringing Up Baby, and selections from Preston Sturges’ oeuvre. We suspect Hepburn and Tracy would’ve loved hipster Brooklyn.
