Bill is a 50-year old delivery man for Best Pizza in New York. Every day he heads out onto the streets on his pushbike to deliver pizzas to a wide delivery area, surviving on his tips, wits, and good will of others. This film follows him through a couple of days work.
Big cities are great for characters, although in real life the people we see who catch the eye, tend also to be people that we decide not to take more of a risk to talk to. Bill Meier would probably be one of those, with his wild beard, determined eyes, raggedy appearance, and that low-rent profession – I guess his customers love him for who he is, but at the same time are unlikely to ask him if he is free to babysit anytime soon. This film is engaging because what it does is take away the discomfort we would feel to speak to Bill, and instead the camera follows him and allows him to chat at the same time.
The resulting film doesn't have great reveals about Bill, or any significant insight into the human condition, but it does provide an interesting character who remains interesting once we move beyond the superficial. Bill is an engaging sort too; he works hard, gets little, and somehow gets by – and I guess for many this is more than enough to justify the 8 or so minutes we spend with him. Technically the journey is well made too, with great on-road footage, good access, good selection of dialogue, and generally a presentation style that feels close to Bill. However for me, my mind wandered a bit about the issues that the film maybe doesn't explore as keenly.
Specifically I was taken by Bill's situation because, cheerful/philosophical or not, it is a tough life to work so hard and still not have a life approaching comfort. This thought process really started for me with the sight of him cycling while holding a large pizza carrier in one hand – which looked awkward and dangerous until I saw him trying to negotiate the journey with two of them filled with pizzas. This sight made me wonder why his bike does have some form of carrier on the front or back – or at least a method of strapping them to himself so he can have both hands free to control the bike; I wondered why Best Pizza hadn't also seen this and tried to do something (although, to be fair, I do not know if they have or not – maybe his current method is better than it was?). I also then considered his living condition; why is he begging couch space from friends when he works so hard and appears to be liked by his customers – is it his fault for spending money on other things, or is it that this life simply cannot sustain him in the city? It is odd to see these things and care about them (due to the film making me interested in Bill) but yet to really have no answers.
Maybe it is a triumph of the film that I spent a lot of time after the film thinking about Bill – longer than I spent watching the film I guess? The access to the character is good, and it makes for an engaging film to follow and chat to such an odd-looking chap, but at the same time it is hard to escape the feeling that at some point life will overwhelm him, and this news will be greeted with momentary reflection from those who surely must see Bill's challenges even more clearly than the viewers of this film will. Although this thought process sounds like I did not enjoy the film, I did enjoy the access to Bill, however at the same time I felt a bit weird because it doesn't allow me to do much more than be one of the customers enjoying the odd character but then shutting the door to get on with my pizza and life.
