The Yardley Boys
Directed by Aaron Bartuska
Written by Aaron Bartuska, Bobby Decker, Drew Ferraro, Jack O’Brien, and Jake Singer
Starring Bobby Decker, Drew Ferraro, and Jake Singer
Unrated
Runtime: 55 minutes
Available on Vimeo via Split Tooth Media here

by Shayna Davis, Staff Writer

At the age of 18, I hightailed it out of my hometown without a second thought. I left some wonderful people behind, but I could never understand why anyone would choose to stay where they were planted. I’ve never found the “person who decides to stay” relatable. Now in my mid-20s, I live in a city I had barely seen before moving here and have never felt more at home. However, when a large group of people I love flocked to even bigger, farther cities without me, I unexpectedly became that “person who decided to stay”. I hadn’t fully recognized those feelings in myself, though, until I watched The Yardley Boys.

The Yardley Boys is the third ‘feature’ film from indie filmmaker Aaron Bartuska. The film follows two lifelong friends, Bensen (Bobby Decker) and Moses (Drew Ferraro), who still live in the small Pennsylvania town they grew up in and are trying to decide what comes next. Bensen is perfectly content living with his parents, spending every day skateboarding, seeing his friends, avoiding his girlfriend’s phone calls, and not having to make any real big decisions. His world gets shaken up when his cat Casper (playing himself) goes missing, and he’s forced to confront an encroaching reality that he’s been avoiding. Set across the span of a few days, The Yardley Boys gets to the heart of growing up and the importance of truly genuine friendships.

The label of ‘feature film’ here is used fairly loosely as The Yardley Boys comes in at just shy of a 60 minute runtime overall, but Bartuska ensures that every minute of that relatively brief screentime is used to its fullest.

Taking deep inspiration from the Mumblecore film movement of the early 00s, which emphasized naturalism by way of improvised dialogue, low budgets, and shooting on location, Yardley Boys succeeds in its attempt to make the audience feel like we are truly along for the ride with these characters. The film bypasses the use of much soundtrack and opts instead for crickets, cicadas, skateboard wheels on pavement, cars whizzing by, flowing river water, and more to create a full sense of environment that triggers a comfortable suburban nostalgia. The camera movements remain fluid throughout, like an extra body in the room. It really does feel as though you’re a part of this group with Bensen, Moses, and their skate-shop employee friend Jake (Jake Singer), sharing in their casual life updates and goofy banter. By letting everything play out in near real-time, the feeling of how much these boys care about each other really comes through. Even if they can’t seem to profess it out loud themselves.

Buying into the relationship and routine of these characters may have come particularly easy to me as someone who spent a significant portion of their late high school years accompanying boys to skateparks and meandering around the neighborhood, but I am a firm believer in the more specific something gets, the more relatable it becomes. And it is so satisfying when a film perfectly captures a very specific feeling. For Yardley Boys, Bartuska really catches that listless feeling that one experiences in their early adulthood. When no one is telling you what to do anymore and you realize the moment has come to make big decisions for yourself. Sometimes you’re lucky, and you have a goal, a passion driving you forward. Often though, it's a wide-open expanse laid out in front of you, and you just have to keep walking and see what happens. The latter is what Bensen and Moses are trying to navigate, potentially at the expense of their friendship, but only time will tell. Anyone can watch these fellas interact and think of someone who you would be, or have been, equally as scared to part from.

One particular scene that I think captures the spirit of the whole film well comes just after the halfway mark, right after Bensen’s cat Casper runs away. Understandably distraught, Bensen ropes Moses into helping him track Casper down. After doing a quick canvas of the neighborhood, the two guys sit down to make Missing Cat posters. They end up making probably the worst Missing Cat posters of all time. Each one looks like it was made by an elementary schooler who has maybe never seen a cat, but understands the concept of what one would look like. Regardless, the boys make them with complete seriousness. It’s hilarious in the same way that one fully commits to a stupid bit with a friend. It perfectly encapsulates the wavelength that the two boys are on together and how they have each other’s backs.

For the past several years, I’ve heard countless lamentations from the Film Community At Large of the ‘death of independent cinema’ at the hands of large studios. While I do think that was true in some respect, I can’t help but feel a shift in the air. With the rise of companies like A24 and Neon championing mid-budget art house films, the acceptance speeches following Anora’s best picture win at this year’s Academy Awards, and seeing the rise of ‘cinephilia’ in Gen Z moviegoers, Mumblecore specifically may not experience a comeback any time soon, but I believe we may be entering a new era of Indie and DIY filmmaking. Small, passionate films like The Yardley Boys can stand as a testament to how exciting that is.

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