At its core, directors John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke's Drunk Bus is the kind of coming of age post-college comedy that's been around since as far back as The Graduate, if not longer. But much like Greg Mottola's lesser-seen 2009 classic Adventureland, Drunk Bus uses goofball humor as a way to explore the malaise and aimlessness many people experience in their early 20s when faced with the hard reality of what life is going to be like after college. It doesn't really break new ground, yet it still finds ways to quietly subvert the subgenre's regressive tropes and thoroughly immerses you in the mindset of its drifting protagonist, all while making room for pot smoking, poop gags, and other assorted raunchiness. Thanks to its charming cast and even-handed blend of laughs and drama, Drunk Bus generally succeeds in putting a fresh spin on its familiar story.

Set in 2006 and "Inspired by real s**t" (as its tone-setting opening title card puts it), the film follows Michael (Charlie Tahan), a college graduate who's spent the last four years working as a campus bus driver on the night shift, transporting drunk students from one gathering to another (hence the shift's nickname, "drunk bus") at the Kent Institute of Technology in Ohio. Michael, as he knows all too well, is stuck in a rut: he was dumped by his longtime girlfriend Amy (Sarah Mezzanotte) nine months ago and is continuously ducking phone calls from his sister, who wants him to pursue a better job. However, when the Institute hires a punk-rock samoan security guard known as Pineapple (Pineapple Tangaroa) to protect him following an incident on his shift one night, the pair form an unlikely friendship that could be the key to finally breaking Michael out of his lethargic routine.

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Written by Chris Molinaro (from a story he cowrote with Carlucci and LaGanke), Drunk Bus tends to be heavy-handed with its metaphors and follows a pretty clear trajectory on through to the end. In this case, fortunately, the enjoyable journey typically compensates for the predictability of the final destination and even makes a few unexpected, but welcome, detours along the way. Similarly, while it would've been nice to focus a little more on the supporting characters, Drunk Bus is ultimately Michael's story and takes the time to earn his arc by having him screw up in believable ways, even when he's actively trying to get his life together and not being dragged into another misadventure by Pineapple. As archetypical as the latter is, he's also granted a life outside of being Michael's quirky mentor; the same goes for Kat (Kara Hayward - yes, that's grown-up Suzy from Moonrise Kingdom), a college student who frequently rides the "drunk bus" with her gay friend Justin (Tonatiuh), and even Amy, who's eventually revealed to be struggling just as much as Michael, if in different ways. The actors are quite charismatic across the board, making their onscreen relationships all the easier to buy.

Kara Hayward and Charlie Tahan in Drunk Bus

More than anything, though, Drunk Bus thrives at pulling audiences into the strange world of the "drunk bus" and the various people - some of which are fascinatingly eccentric, others just knuckle-headed dudebros - Michael encounters on his nightly odyssey. Filmed on location in small town New York in the midst of winter, the movie brings its setting to tangible life, to the degree that it leaves you feeling like you've been tromping around in the cold with Michael and Pineapple for the past couple hours by the time the end credits start rolling. When it comes to craftsmanship, Carlucci and LaGanke and their DP Luke McCoubrey incorporate a handful of flashier if standard techniques (like a sequence that speeds up time) to further show what this life is like from Michael's perspective, and it adds a little extra spice to what was undoubtedly a shoestring production. Overall, it's a respectable feature-length debut for Carlucci and LaGanke and leaves you wondering what the pair could do with a larger canvas to paint on.

Although it was originally set to premiere at this year's SXSW before screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival, Drunk Bus is one of many promising 2020 indie features that now finds itself facing an uncertain future because of the coronavirus outbreak. Hopefully, whenever it does become available for the masses to watch, cinephiles will seek it out. It's a commendable addition to the post-college comedy tradition on its own and, as with all good directing debuts, begs the question of what its filmmakers could come up with next. After all, as Drunk Bus itself points out, being alive sometimes means taking the first step without knowing exactly where it's going to lead you.

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Drunk Bus does not have a release date for the moment. It is 100 minutes long and is intended for mature audiences.