Five "disreputable" women from Brooklyn meet in the late-afternoon hours to throw back half-price drink specials and bitch uninhibitedly about life, libidos and lactation.
Set against the backdrop of the underground music and art scenes in New York, "Margarita Happy Hour" is a film about life after the party. Five "disreputable" young women meet in the late afternoon hours of half price drink specials and jabber uninhibitedly about life, libidos, and lactation. The heroine of this real life "Sex and the City" quintet is Zelda (Eleanor Hutchins), an artist and unwed mother struggling to hold on to her persona as sexy, rock star-seducing siren. To make ends meet, Zelda works as a porno-mag illustrator and shares a communal Brooklyn loft infested with drug-addled hipsters and scene queens. Her once fiery romance with her boyfriend Max (Larry Fessenden), a street-fighting, caffeine fueled washed-up poet is on the rocks as he struggles to live up to the challenges of modern fatherhood. To aggravate matters, Zelda's best friend Natali (Holly Ramos) moves in to recover from the damage of her rock'n'roll lifestyle. At first, Max is angered by this intrusion into their already delicate balance of personalities, but later finds himself becoming strangely attracted to Natali. Meanwhile, Zelda begins to falter in her attempts to care for everyone's needs. When events take an irreversible turn, Zelda is forced to decide whether to remain trapped by the illusions of youth or break out of the cycle.
Zelda (Eleanor Hutchins) was queen of the artsy downtown scene in Brooklyn--until she decided to have a baby. What happens to the punk princess who becomes a single mom? It's not an easy transition. Her boyfriend, Max (played by indie director Larry Fessenden), who thinks he's the next Jack Kerouac and has a taste for womanizing, alcohol, and violence, is little help. To make matters worse, her friends gravitate toward cocaine and very loud music. Zelda tries in vain to sing her baby to sleep as the walls of her communal Brooklyn loft vibrate to the beat of the party. She finds some respite in her weekly meetings with a group of other "floozy" moms, who bring their toddlers to the margarita happy hour at a local bar. There, the women trade stories and support each other through their difficult journey of young motherhood. Zelda is able to scrape by, picking up some cash as a freelance illustrator for a porn magazine. But after her rock-chick junkie pal, Natali (Holly Ramos), comes back into her life, Zelda starts to wonder whether perhaps it's time for the party to end. Director Ilya Chaiken was herself a single mother living in New York while making this film, and her experiences surely have helped give the characters and story the ring of truth. The film's quintet of single women (reminiscent of the characters on SEX AND THE CITY) are not very glamorous--they are earthy and raw, dealing with the hard realities of trying to mix motherhood with their alternative lifestyles. In their own ways, they succeed.
In Brooklyn, Zelda, her lover Max, and their small daughter Little Z share one room in a flat with seven others, including Natali, a best friend of Zelda's just out of detox. Max is a would-be writer, off most of the time drinking; Zelda is an illustrator working in the bedroom as she tends Little Z. At least once a week, Zelda and four other young women who each have a child meet for $2 margaritas during happy hour. They talk about life a few years ago without kids, men (only one is married), postpartum sex drives, moving to the country, and being stuck. As Max's moods weigh more heavily on Zelda and as Natali's recovery abates, can Zelda find constant forward motion?—<[email protected]>
