After venturing back in time to review some of the touchstones of Mumblecore, we check in to see what this generation's young adults are kvetching about.
THIS CLOSENESS (B) - Kit Zauhar made a passable debut feature, "Actual People," about a woman graduating college without clear direction, and now she gives us a low-budget potboiler about a couple whose relationship is on the rocks and pushed toward the edge by the people around them. This is a claustrophobic movie, akin to a stage play, which takes place almost entirely inside an Airbnb apartment that the couple shares with an odd tenant.
Zauhar writes, directs, and stars as Tessa, who is abiding the antics of her boyfriend, Ben (Zane Pais), during the weekend of his 10th-anniversary high school reunion in Philadelphia. For some reason they book a place that comes with oddball Adam (Ian Edlund), who is a video editor and mostly stays huddled in his bedroom, though he does share common areas with Tessa and Ben.
Added to the mix is good-time girl Lizzy (Jessie Pinnick), a former classmate who has an uncomfortably deep bond with Ben and parties with him and their classmates all weekend, while Tessa often stays behind. The McGuffin here is that Tessa is an ASMR videographer, specializing not so much in sounds as in sensory touching of her subjects on camera.
What Zauhar has created is a jangly drama about the tenuousness of interpersonal relationships. Lizzy threatens the bond between Tessa and Ben, which is shaky to begin with. Tessa, who is smart and has exotic looks, seems to be settling for a conventionally handsome fun guy in order to tamp down her own insecurities. When Lizzy comes by for an ASMR session, it gets interrupted by Adam emerging from his room. Later, Tessa, a little tipsy, gives Adam a sample of her techniques, only to be interrupted unexpectedly by Ben, who is understandably upset by this.
Edlund brings layers to a character who at first seemed like a borderline dangerous incel. Zauhar's Tessa has depths of emotions that suggest she may be consciously or subconsciously sabotaging her relationship with Ben, who simply wants to have a fun weekend and doesn't want to be annoyed by the gangly weirdo in the other bedroom. Zauhar brings this to a boil -- including a charged scene of edgy, explicit role-play sex -- and a thoughtful resolution within 88 minutes. She does lean too lazily on a plot device halfway through in which Tessa spills her guts to her therapist in an emergency phone session. Still, it's another step forward for her filmmaking, adding more working parts to a narrative and using the confined space to force discipline on her visual art. Let's see where she takes us next.
SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING (B+) - Daisy Ridley ("Star Wars") is delightfully placid in this off-kilter black comedy about the tedious life of a wallflower who, as the title suggests, sometimes engages in flights of fancy revolving around death scenarios. It is a languorous meditation on the struggles of socially awkward people in the modern age.
Director Rachel Lambert -- working from a script from a committee of three writers -- leans heavily on Ridley, portraying bland Fran, who does little more than work diligently at her McJob in an office full of hokey work nerds. Lambert lets the camera eavesdrop on tedious office conversations (parts of which are intentionally inaudible), as if to give permission to Fran to seek escape through her daydreams of doom. If you've ever sat a desk, doing a task for the millionth time, surrounded by uninspiring drones, you might empathize with Fran wishing she were put out of her misery. It's no wonder that she's the type who walks into her home at the end of a weekday and pours herself a glass of wine before taking her coat off first.
But into this mind-numbingly dreary work space comes the new guy, Robert (David Merheje), who is refreshingly amusing, thoughtful and possibly even a little fun. He shows an interest in Fran, who, to her credit, manages to bust through her own shell and stick her neck out for a chance at some romance. They have quaint movie dates -- he's a film buff -- but her hangups are an obvious obstacle to a true relationship.
Lambert gives this all a gloomy texture, shooting along Oregon's Pacific coast, with a nod or two toward the American New Wave of the 1970s in general and even the emotional numbness of "Five Easy Pieces" in particular. She depicts Fran's doomsday daydreams with dramatic flourishes, as if she is staging artworks for the Romanticists. But a few death fantasies come out of nowhere, with the punch of an action film -- before returning us to Fran's bland living-breathing world.
Ridley is a revelation, doing her own riff on something you'd see from Sissy Spacek back in the day. Merheje is convincing as a nice guy who himself is trying to figure a few things out after a couple of unsuccessful marriages. Megan Stalter (TV's "Hacks") steals a few scenes as the unnaturally perky boss overseeing this menagerie of misfits in a workplace that seems like a sci-fi twist on "The Office" or "Office Space." Character actors Marcia DeBonis, as a melancholy recent retiree, and Parvesh Cheena bring some veteran heft to the proceedings
Everything knits together pleasantly, and if you are patient with the overall gloom and snail's pace, you might enjoy this little gem.
BONUS TRACKS
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