Daryn Miller is a cry-baby wimp, who still carries his baby fat. He isn’t a cunning businessman like his granddad, who opened a fitness club in a Johannesburg suburb 60 years ago. And, he’s definitely not a winner like his father who – as a successful bodybuilder – helped the business flourish. Under Daryn’s management, debts rise and membership decreases. On top of that, he finds a hostile competitor in Stars Fitness, a chain run by a dyed-in-the-wool career woman, who prefers to destroy her competitors instead of out-compete them.
The mockumentary-style production, portrays the local family business and a merciless multinational as a David versus Goliath battle, in which Murphy’s law applies, yet everything comes up roses in the end. Daryn’s Gym is a light, sometimes deliciously exaggerated comedy, in which multicultural South Africa isn’t the premise for intense drama, but the natural context for jokes about sex, religion, and a generation of fashionable vegans, yoga fanatics, and social media junkies.
Trailer
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Film details
- Country of production
- South Africa
- Year
- 2021
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2022
- Length
- 90"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
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