Burt

An aging guitarist and songwriter meets his long lost son over a couple of days in California, inviting him into his life and sharing everything of his soul to the relationship he never thought he’d have, the same soul that he puts into his songs.

Burt Berger is a Californian. He’s 69, lives in rented accommodation with his crazed landlord Steve, has a great tan and a great outlook on life, and likes to write songs about the life he sees on the streets of the city every day as he walks to wherever he’s going, usually with guitar in hand. When his surprise son turns up one day to hear him sing, he’s propelled into a missed relationship where he finally gets to be the father he never was. Sammy (Cooper) has come all the way from New York to meet his Dad, and he wants the relationship he never had just as much as Burt does, but Steve (Levy) has some suspicions about just what the motives are for this sudden new arrival.

Steve is also 69 or thereabouts, he’s wild as hell and won’t take no shit off of nobody. He’s the landlord and you bloody well know about it. If he’s not telling you exactly which bathroom is yours and which one is definitely not, he’s taking you out to his non-existent vegetable patch to tell you just how much work the worms are doing for him under the ground. He knows there’s something fishy about Sammy right from the start, and sure enough, not very far into the film, Sammy turns out to be a rat. He’s been put up to a grift by his Aunt Sylvia from the bagel shop, and has been strongarmed into trying to con Burt out of half of his $300,000 inheritance. There’s subterfuge abound and Burt has to wrestle with his emotions through it all as deep feelings surface and bad choices are faced.

Thankfully, Burt has the emotional capacity and range to deal with all of this as it comes. He is played by himself, as Burt Berger, a fictionalised version of the man he really is, and radiates warmth and compassion to the son he thought he’d never have. He tells his history though his songs, while also wanting to know more about Sammy’s life, and shows an open honesty in every line that he delivers. The film is punctuated by Burt’s songs, and every interlude we take from the moving of the narrative brings us right into California, giving us sweet visuals of the roads and the coastline and the palm trees as we process the big emotions he’s dealing with.

Shot in black and white, and in seven days for $7000, there’s a Clerks-esque (1994) feel to Burt’s story, somewhere through Linklater and Jarmusch, and maybe with a dash of Aronosfsky, too. Director, co-writer, and co-producer, Joe Burke saw the film he wanted to make, and the man he wanted to make the film with, and put together a well-built story with his co-writer, co-producer, and star, Oliver Cooper that would encompass everything they wanted to communicate. Most of the plot is basic, but well designed, and the best use is made of the real-life scenarios presented in Burt and Steve’s real lives, with Steve also being credited for basically playing himself. There’s an inevitability about Burt and what he goes through, but it’s entirely fun along the way and everything is expertly delivered.

Burke’s direction and editing keeps the film pacy, and we’re never short on fun, or drama, or laughs because of the script. Burt is extremely likeable on screen, and the film benefits from the way that all the characters are played, with their amateur backgrounds making the ambience all the more authentic. As a character and a performance, Burt is a gem, and the film is made for him, but Steve steals the show as the comedy relief, and Catlin Adams knocks it out the park as she delivers the most vicious villain in all of modern cinema.

For a small film on a small budget you can feel there’s a heart at work, making use of the story that is right in front of them, sharing some global truths that when taken seriously, hit where it hurts. Burt manages to be a great film the whole way through, all 1 hour 17 minutes of it, because even the credits are good too, thanks to composer Tim Rutili’s free-wheelin’ score. If there’s some time to be taken out, sitting with Burt and listening to him talk and sing, it’s worth taking, because there’s plenty of message to be taken from his story and the music’s pretty damn great, too.

Burt will screen at the Palm Springs Film Festival 2026 3, 4, 8, & 9 of January.