More than 10 years ago, Thomas Michael had an idea: an Easter bunny, in an alley, smoking a cigarette on a break from work. Then the bunny spoke: “Fucking kids and their fucking chocolate.”
The character would stay with the filmmaker in various incarnations over the next decade, first as a sketch comedy routine on Canadian television and now as a full-length feature film. “Hank and Mike” will be showing Tuesday night as part of Melnitz Movies in the James Bridges Theater. The evening will include a Q&A with the filmmakers and an Easter egg hunt (read: candy and prizes).
The live-action comedy ““ recently purchased by Magnolia Pictures at the Sundance Film Festival ““ follows two friends whose lives revolve around their work as blue-collar Easter bunnies. When Hank (Michael) and Mike (Paolo Mancini) get the ax as part of a downsizing campaign, they are forced to confront the life that awaits them outside of egg painting and candy delivery. The film also includes appearances by Chris Klein (“American Pie”) and Joe Mantegna (“Criminal Minds”).
Besides its success at Sundance, the movie has entertained crowds at half a dozen film festivals around the world, including the Vancouver International Film Festival and the upcoming Canadian Filmmakers Festival.
While the story of two disgruntled Easter bunnies may be new in the United States, it’s no leap for Canadian audiences.
Michael, along with writing partner and childhood friend Mancini, developed the two characters as teenagers and soon had them appearing in sketches on the Comedy Network, Canada’s version of Comedy Central.
Fellow childhood friend Matthiew Klinck created the Comedy Network series and has been directing “Hank and Mike” projects ever since. With Klinck’s insistence, “Hank and Mike” turned from sketch to short film and now to full-length feature.
As Klinck tells it, Michael and Mancini were wary of turning their quirky sketch into a 90-minute story, but his confidence in the project finally convinced them.
“I thought they were such interesting characters and that there was potential to lift them out of that simple sketch setting and put them into the real world,” Klinck said.
Movie viewers who aren’t fans of the sugarcoated spring holiday, have no fear. The movie really has little to do with Easter.
“It’s a story about friendship and finding your purpose in life,” Michael said. “It satirizes the concept of people tying up their entire identity with what they do for their living.”
“It’s a very dark comedy set in a gritty, real world that is very grounded in reality.”
Producer Nicholas Tabarrok believes the film challenges the audience more than the typical comedy.
“It takes them on a ride. … It’s got humor, sex, comedy and drugs, but at the same time it’s thoughtful and smart,” he said.
And the bunny suits?
“They never take the suits off,” Michael said. “They shower in them, they sleep in them, they have sex in them … and within 5 to 10 minutes you completely forget the suits even exist. The story would work equally as well if they were two mailmen.”
In the process of moving from inspired idea to Canadian television to film festival favorite, Klinck believes they have hit on something truly original.
“I believe it was Shakespeare who said there are seven universal stories in the human condition,” he said. “I think in doing a film about two unemployed Easter bunnies we found the eighth story.”