November 14, 2025
FILM: BUNNY
DIRECTED BY: BEN JACOBSON
STARRING: MO STARK, BEN JACOBSON, LIZA COLBY
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
What do you get when you combine Superbad, Dazed & Confused, Tangerine, and Pieces of April? It’s the feature directorial debut from Ben Jacobson and Mo Stark called Bunny, a crazy romp of a comedy featuring at least one dead body, an Orthodox Jewish woman, a hustler, a man afraid of spiders, and an old Asian woman who doesn’t like mice. These are all elements you’d expect to find in one film, right?! Oh, yeah, and like the films mentioned above everything happens in one day and night. Buckle up for this one…
At the start of the film, we hear voice over narration from screenwriter Mo Stark as his character Bunny. He tells us he’s a hustler or gigolo, “like Richard Gere.” In this case, he’s running down the street with blood all over his shirt, his long stringy hair flying in the wind, and Garland Jeffreys’ Wild in the Streets playing on the soundtrack. This sets up the wild ride of the film as Bunny has been through something that is not immediately revealed. Instead he blends pretty quickly into the action-oriented building in which he lives with his wife Bobbie in New York City. Bunny has quite an important care-giving role within the dwelling including helping an older resident carry down his laundry and renting out a room in his own apartment to people traveling through town. The woman that arrives for her stay is an Orthodox Jew from California who is planning to meet a man she first met online. Happy Chana, as she wants to be called, has plenty of rules that conform to her faith, including not being in a room alone with a man. Bunny does all he can to abide by her requests. He’s that kind of guy.
However, Bunny has been up to something that we still aren’t privy to when a man shows up, a fight ensues, and the man’s body lies at the bottom of one flight of stairs. Hiding the body becomes a focus, but there are numerous other things happening in the building: Bobbie’s estranged father suddenly shows up, two cops investigate something at neighbor Linda’s apartment, and three female roommates prepare for a big party. There’s a lot of non-stop energy in the building as characters move in and out of scenes. They’ve all got their own issues and scurry around the building like mice, of which an actual one is caught in the apartment of an overdosed neighbor.
Like the films mentioned above, most of the plot takes place in one day/night. The colorful characters and multi-story apartment building with its many flights of stairs and cramped rooms are reminiscent of the environment in Peter Hedges’ 2003 Thanksgiving-day film, Pieces of April. The characters though are a bit rougher edged like those found in Sean Baker’s 2015 L.A. based, single day set, indie hit, Tangerine. Of course, the one night/party atmosphere recalls Superbad and Dazed & Confused, albeit with more adults than high school kids.
However, Bunny is its own tamed beast with so many well-developed and rounded characters who we get to know and connect with very quickly. One of the best is Dino, played by the director and co-writer Ben Jacobson. With his Eminem-style haircut and a genuine likeable but somewhat dimwitted personality, Dino may be the most fun to be around. Whereas Bunny is a bit more understandably unhinged, Dino comes across as the naïve friend who tries to do the right thing within a crazed situation.
There’s nothing deep about Bunny but it does counter the idea that people living in a single building in New York are distant and cold to each other. This is a pretty supportive community. They clearly watch out for each other.
Even though most of the actors are relatively unknown, I never felt a lack of skill from any of them. They’ve all got screen presence and we care about their characters, including Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forest Gump) as Franklin, a bedridden resident obsessed with David Carradine and Kung Fu and his roommate Ian, played by fiction writer Richard Price. This is quite an eclectic cast that is definitely fun to watch.
Enjoy the ride with this one.
Bunny opens in select theaters and on VOD today.
FILM: BUNNY
DIRECTED BY: BEN JACOBSON
STARRING: MO STARK, BEN JACOBSON, LIZA COLBY
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
What do you get when you combine Superbad, Dazed & Confused, Tangerine, and Pieces of April? It’s the feature directorial debut from Ben Jacobson and Mo Stark called Bunny, a crazy romp of a comedy featuring at least one dead body, an Orthodox Jewish woman, a hustler, a man afraid of spiders, and an old Asian woman who doesn’t like mice. These are all elements you’d expect to find in one film, right?! Oh, yeah, and like the films mentioned above everything happens in one day and night. Buckle up for this one…
At the start of the film, we hear voice over narration from screenwriter Mo Stark as his character Bunny. He tells us he’s a hustler or gigolo, “like Richard Gere.” In this case, he’s running down the street with blood all over his shirt, his long stringy hair flying in the wind, and Garland Jeffreys’ Wild in the Streets playing on the soundtrack. This sets up the wild ride of the film as Bunny has been through something that is not immediately revealed. Instead he blends pretty quickly into the action-oriented building in which he lives with his wife Bobbie in New York City. Bunny has quite an important care-giving role within the dwelling including helping an older resident carry down his laundry and renting out a room in his own apartment to people traveling through town. The woman that arrives for her stay is an Orthodox Jew from California who is planning to meet a man she first met online. Happy Chana, as she wants to be called, has plenty of rules that conform to her faith, including not being in a room alone with a man. Bunny does all he can to abide by her requests. He’s that kind of guy.
However, Bunny has been up to something that we still aren’t privy to when a man shows up, a fight ensues, and the man’s body lies at the bottom of one flight of stairs. Hiding the body becomes a focus, but there are numerous other things happening in the building: Bobbie’s estranged father suddenly shows up, two cops investigate something at neighbor Linda’s apartment, and three female roommates prepare for a big party. There’s a lot of non-stop energy in the building as characters move in and out of scenes. They’ve all got their own issues and scurry around the building like mice, of which an actual one is caught in the apartment of an overdosed neighbor.
Like the films mentioned above, most of the plot takes place in one day/night. The colorful characters and multi-story apartment building with its many flights of stairs and cramped rooms are reminiscent of the environment in Peter Hedges’ 2003 Thanksgiving-day film, Pieces of April. The characters though are a bit rougher edged like those found in Sean Baker’s 2015 L.A. based, single day set, indie hit, Tangerine. Of course, the one night/party atmosphere recalls Superbad and Dazed & Confused, albeit with more adults than high school kids.
However, Bunny is its own tamed beast with so many well-developed and rounded characters who we get to know and connect with very quickly. One of the best is Dino, played by the director and co-writer Ben Jacobson. With his Eminem-style haircut and a genuine likeable but somewhat dimwitted personality, Dino may be the most fun to be around. Whereas Bunny is a bit more understandably unhinged, Dino comes across as the naïve friend who tries to do the right thing within a crazed situation.
There’s nothing deep about Bunny but it does counter the idea that people living in a single building in New York are distant and cold to each other. This is a pretty supportive community. They clearly watch out for each other.
Even though most of the actors are relatively unknown, I never felt a lack of skill from any of them. They’ve all got screen presence and we care about their characters, including Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forest Gump) as Franklin, a bedridden resident obsessed with David Carradine and Kung Fu and his roommate Ian, played by fiction writer Richard Price. This is quite an eclectic cast that is definitely fun to watch.
Enjoy the ride with this one.
Bunny opens in select theaters and on VOD today.