If any film merits the term “development hell”, it’s this. Patrick Read Johnson shot 5-25-77 between 2004 and 2006, when star John Francis Daley (now director of Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves) was young enough to pass for its 17-year-old lead character; its special effects were only completed in the back half of the last decade. But this tortuous backstory entirely befits this autobiographical ode to cineaste passion and persistence, all hung on nerd D-day: 25 May 1977, the release of Star Wars (whose producer Gary Kurtz also oversaw this film and didn’t live to see it finished).
5-25-77 is geek film-making’s Almost Famous. Fired up by an early viewing of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Illinois suburbanite Pat (Daley) is mad-keen on trying to replicate his favourite blockbusters by roping his friends, including the reliably sarcastic Bill (Steve Coulter), into shooting no-budget back yard versions. But he is going nowhere – not least with the ladies – until mother Janet (Colleen Camp) makes a phone call to Herb Lightman (Austin Pendleton), editor of American Cinematographer magazine. Pat finds himself on a plane to Los Angeles with a prospective hook-up at Future General Corporation, 2001 FX supremo Douglas Trumbull’s special projects lab.
Johnson – who in the intervening years wrote 1996 fantasy pic Dragonheart and did effects work on Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure – wears his enthusiasm on his sleeve, sometimes to a fault. The early scenes, revolving around Pat and put-upon single mother Janet, are an irritating barrage of motormouthed cinephilia, while the whole film is an odd bricolage of styles: loose-limbed Linklater sitcom, Kubrick pastiche, Guy Maddin primitivism, lo-fi fantasia. But it is energetic and completely aligned with Pat’s feverish commitment to getting to the shot, no matter what.
As per a pal’s amateur diagnosis, Pat is compensating for his own issues by fixating on the anointed 25 May date as a life-transforming event, and so endangering a budding relationship with Linda (Emmi Chen). Star Wars worship is a zombie trope on film, but 5-25-77 exceeds the likes of Troops and Kevin Smith in its self-excoriating questioning of the need to invest this much in screen fictions. “Here you are, at the intersection of fantasy and reality.” Pat blows his big audition here with fellow dreamer Steven Spielberg, but his film is Meet the Fabelmans’ annoying little brother – in a good way.
• 5-25-77 is available on digital platforms on 1 May.
