Duck Butter 2018 Movie Review

『An Emotional Experiment of 24 Hours Exploring the Density and Speed of Love』

🎥 Movie Overview

🎬 Title: Duck Butter (2018)
🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 USA
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Romance / Experimental
⏳ Runtime: 90 minutes (approx.)
📢 Director: Miguel Arteta
🖋️ Screenplay: Miguel Arteta, Alia Shawkat

👩‍💼 Cast: Alia Shawkat – Naima
Laia Costa – Sergio

🧩 Story Deep Dive (Spoilers)

⏳ The 24-Hour Emotional Experiment

Naima and Sergio meet by chance and feel an immediate attraction. Seeking to escape the superficiality and dissatisfaction of past relationships, they attempt an experimental bond: staying awake for 24 hours and having sex every hour. In this single day, they experience what feels like years of a relationship condensed—ranging from euphoric intimacy to intense conflict.

🦋 Emotional Resonance and Meaning

💔 The 'Acceleration' and 'Collapse' of Intimacy

The film’s core revolves around Sergio’s suggestion: "We can skip time." They bypass the usual early stages of awkwardness, pretense, and ritual to dive straight into the deepest and most vulnerable aspects of a relationship.

• Initial phase: The first few hours are filled with passion, sexual indulgence, and playfulness, showcasing the pair’s electric chemistry. The sexual scenes are portrayed with a rare naturalism and raw intimacy, deliberately rejecting the male gaze to express female sexuality with honesty.

• Fatigue and truth: As time passes and sleep deprivation sets in, their defenses break down, and hidden insecurities, traumas, and selfishness erupt. Flaws they once tried to conceal in early stages of a relationship are now brutally exposed under extreme exhaustion.

🔄 The Dynamic of Contrasting Characters

Naima and Sergio embody the contrasts of modern relationships.

• Naima is an introverted, controlling, self-conscious artist (an actress). She fears immersing herself too deeply in relationships, constantly analyzing and hesitating. Her restrained nature draws her toward Sergio’s unpredictable magnetism.

• Sergio is free-spirited, impulsive, and boundary-less, appearing as a type of "Manic Pixie Dream Girl." Her blunt honesty liberates Naima but also reveals extreme volatility and selfishness that threaten to unravel the relationship.

🎥 Experimental Filmmaking and Realism

The production itself was experimental. The 24-hour sequence was filmed while the cast and crew remained awake for 27 consecutive hours. This lent the performances an authenticity—the fatigue, emotional swings, and manic energy captured on screen are not merely acted but lived.

• Handheld and close-ups: Filming in a confined interior space, the camera focuses intensely on the two leads. The tight close-ups evoke both suffocating intimacy and claustrophobia for the audience.

• The metaphor of the title: The term 'Duck Butter' is slang for smegma, referring to bodily fluids and sweat. It arises during a conversation about Naima’s past experiences, symbolizing the film’s theme of stripping away pretense to embrace the messy, sweaty, and unpolished reality of human intimacy.

🌈 The Anxiety and Honesty of Modern Love

Duck Butter explores a lesbian romance without making sexual orientation itself a source of conflict. Instead, it investigates the universal struggles of intimacy—fear of closeness, authenticity, and self-destructive patterns.

However, the film has faced criticism for not fully sustaining its experimental concept. The intensity of the 24-hour premise becomes repetitive and monotonous in the latter half, and Sergio’s behavior can feel less liberating than simply erratic and unnatural, undermining immersion.

Ultimately, the film draws vitality from the explosive chemistry of its two leads and its unique concept, though its loose narrative progression and extreme characterizations make it polarizing. Still, by critiquing superficial dating culture and examining the courage true intimacy demands, it holds a meaningful place in queer indie cinema.

🎯 Personal Rating

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥♥♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★