Douchebag Comes Home

Photo by John Gilhooley

The "Douchebag" gang at its Newport Beach Film Festival screening Tuesday night (from left): Chris Robertson, director of photography; Scott Uhlfelder, director of photography; Sean Vatwer, co-producer; Ben York Jones, actor and associate producer; Drake Doremus, director and co-writer; Andrew Dickler, actor, co-writer and editor; Lindsay Stidham, co-writer and co-producer; Jonathan Schwartz, producer and co-writer; Marguerite Moreau, actress; Casey Immoor, composer; and Jason Torbert, composer.

​Following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the brotherly indie road dramedy Douchebag came home to the Newport Beach Film Festival Tuesday night--and really home for director Drake Doremus as it played in his former home town of Santa Ana.

The film was well received by a large crowd at Regency's South Coast Village Theatre across from South Coast Plaza. The cast, crew, family and friends then gathered for a party afterward at the beautiful Corona del Mar home of co-star Ben York Jones' grandparents.

The second feature from Doremus, whose debut Spooner played at the 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival, Douchebag follows Sam and Tom Nussbaum, brothers who can't stand one another played by Andrew Dickler and Jones respectively.

The Nussbaums are forced together days before Sam is to be married, and forced even closer together when a plan is hatched to find Tom's fifth-grade girlfriend, Mary Barger (the actual name of Doremus' fifth-grade girlfriend at Oakridge Private School in Orange). This leads to a road trip in which the full scope of Sam's douchebaggery and the brothers' loathing of each other are exposed.

Here's the Weekly's previous Douchebag cover story, featuring John Gilhooley's amazing portraits.

It was shot in Santa Monica, Palm Springs and outside the home of Rick Doremus, Drake's dad, on the Newport Beach peninsula.

See, like it said at the top, Douchebag really did come home.