Duck Butter is a 2018 film directed by Miguel Arteta and written by Arteta and Alia Shawkat.
Nima (Shawkat) is an actress who's just managed to get what she hopes will be her Breakout Role from Mark and Jay Duplass. She meets a freespirited young woman, Sergio (Laia Costa), in a gay bar. After they have sex and then get to talking, Sergio proposes an unusual idea-spending a day with a person (including having sex every hour) in order to "fast track" a relationship. Nima, feeling uncomfortable with this concept, declines her offer to try it. She feels intrigued nonetheless by it however, thinking about this after they part. Nima then takes up the offer on the next day, but soon struggles to see it through after this.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Nima and Sergio discuss the relationships which they have with their mothers, while Sergio's also shows up. Sergio never mentions her father, while Nima was closer to hers.
- Ambiguously Bi: Nima and Sergio both relate that they had sex or were in relationships with men before. However, as in both cases they did this for career advancement, it isn't clear whether they actually find men attractive.
- As Himself: Several real people in the film industry appeared as themselves, including both Duplass brothers, Lindsay Burdge and Kumail Nanjiani.
- Atomic F-Bomb: Sergio loudly cries "Fuck!" when the comb she's trying to use is broken while trying to fix her hair after she showered.
- Bilingual Bonus: Sergio and her mother Susana speak in Catalan for a while without subtitles.
- Bittersweet Ending: Nima and Sergio go their separate ways. However, both are shown to have gotten over their hangups a bit, indicating the experience of being together, even briefly, helped them grow as women.
- Blackmail: Sergio tells Nima she once used a Home Porn Movie for this after a record producer she'd been involved with to get her record produced went back on his promise.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Sergio mostly calls her mother "Susana". The two have a difficult relationship, with Sergio expressing dislike of her mother's controlling actions, so it reflects that.
- Cast Full of Gay: Most of the characters are queer women, the two leads Nima and Sergio along with their friends.
- Casting Couch: Nima and Sergio both relate that they slept with men to advance their artistic careers.
- Daddy's Girl: In sharp contrast with her mom, Nima was always quite close with her dad, to the point that he bought her a huge house (she's a bit embarrassed about this).
- Eccentric Artist: Nima is an actress. Sergio is a singer. Both of them are kind of odd, though in a good way, and have long conversations on strange topics. Easily the most eccentric either of them gets is Sergio shitting into a pan then showing Nima as a sign of her displeasure (she did this as a child as well).
- Extremely Short Time Span: The whole film takes place over a day, as Nima accepts Sergio's challenge about "fast-tracking" a relationship to 24 hours.
- Gender-Blender Name: Sergio is a woman with a traditionally male name.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Nima has a pretty pessimistic view of things, believing that as a result of natural resource depletion humanity is likely doomed, thus people are selfish to have kids in such a world. Multiple people complain of how depressing this is. She still does like and wants to help others however, even if the state of things makes her feel depressed.
- Language Barrier: Sergio chides her mom to not speak in Catalan while Nima is there, as she can't understand it.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: A mild example as neither is that extreme, but for the day which they spend together Nima (a short-haired tomboy who likes slightly masculine clothing) and Sergio (who's long-haired with a more feminine style).
- Minimalist Cast: There are only eight characters in the film, and most only appear for a single scene.
- Ms. Fanservice: Nima and Sergio are good-looking women, having extensive sex scenes with both of them seen topless more than once, which are fairly explicit as well.
- My Beloved Smother: Sergio and Nima both don't get along with their mothers well, resenting how they tried to control them in different ways which clashed with their desires.
- Next Thing They Knew: Multiple times scenes cut from Nima and Sergio talking or doing other things together onto them having sex.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Nima's full name is really Naima, but she's happy going by this. It's only used when she introduces herself to Sergio early on.
- Open-Minded Parent: Sergio's mother Susana is wholly fine with free love, even speaking fondly of life prior to AIDS where it was more carefree and is totally fine that her daughter is seeing Nima, another woman. Nima is uncomfortable at just how open-minded Susana is in fact.
- Quirky Curls: Nima has short, very curly hair. She's an openly queer, peppy, bohemian actress.
- Parental Neglect: Sergio's mother Susana left her wandering in the street as a four old, which she continues to resent into the present, saying it was crazy.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: A lot of the film's dialogue focuses on normal stuff like actress Nima talking with the directors of the film she's working on about it, discussing her pessimistic view about the future due to natural resource depletion etc.
- Serious Business: Sergio, a singer, is vehement that doing covers makes singers "interpreters", not true artists, even extending this to Elvis Presley. At the end, though, she does a cover of one he covered as well.
- Shower Scene: Sergio is seen showering during one scene, which shows her topless.
- Threeway Sex: Fourway, actually. Nima suggests Fay and Kathy, a couple Sergio knows, have group sex with them. Sergio is not happy with the idea, but goes along. When the four start kissing though, Nima starts getting uncomfortable, so she calls it off.
- Title Drop: Nima and Sergio discuss how one guy once stopped going down on the former, because of her apparently having too much smegma. Sergio compares this with manteca de pato, or "duck butter" in English.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: It's downplayed, but Nima has short hair with a slightly masculine clothing style. Sergio is a bit more girly, with long hair.
- Twofer Token Minority: Glow, a minor queer woman in the film, has East Asian ancestry.
- Uptight Loves Wild: Nima is a more reserved and shy woman, attracted to bold, freespirited Sergio.
- Wall Bang Her: Sergio has Nima go down on her standing against a wall outside, though it then cuts to them in bed so they moved there apparently.
- Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Nima tells Sergio her mother didn't like that she had been a tomboy already growing up while in school.
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Nima meets Sergio in a gay bar where she's taken a friend for a date. They hit it off and things develop from there.
