I'm Reed Fish

This is another of those movies I’d never even heard of. It’s an indie romantic comedy, and as such, you’d expect it to be quirky. But this movie takes quirky to a whole other level.

Speaking of quirky, the title character is played by Jay Baruchel, who starred in the good but short-lived TV series about college, UNDECLARED. In this one, he’s Reed Fish, the young host of a call-in radio show in a small Midwestern town called Mud Meadows. The radio station is so small and local that the traffic report is about how one of the town’s old-timers has a flat tire and won’t somebody go out and help him change it. As always in movies like this, the town is populated by charming, colorful eccentrics, and all of them have an opinion and don’t hesitate to express it when Reed suddenly breaks off his engagement to his long-time girlfriend and starts to pursue an old flame who has returned to Mud Meadows.

Then, about a third of the way through the movie, there’s a plot twist that causes things to just get weirder and weirder as they go on. You have to watch this one closely to make sense of it, and then there’s one final twist in the credits, so pay attention to them, too.

I liked I’M REED FISH quite a bit. I’m a sucker for small-market AM radio yarns (one reason I loved WKRP), having been around just such a station when I was in college. I doubt if there’s anybody reading this who ever listened to KHRB out of Lockhart, Texas, but if by some odd chance you did, you might have heard a high school football or basketball game I helped broadcast. But that’s another post, and to get back to I’M REED FISH, it’s a good-hearted little movie that’s well worth watching, so give it a chance if you like indie films.