‘Lapsis’ satirizes the gig economy | Nightstream Film Fest

Noah Hutton's Lapsis

Desperate for money to help his ailing brother, a man takes a new job in a strange near-future version of the gig economy in Lapsis

Noah Hutton‘s strong direction and the world he builds that explores the new gig economy that has taken ahold of our everyday lives are interesting enough for Lapsis to overcome its uneven narrative.

Lapsis will be released by Film Movement in November 2020.

Lapsis—playing at the Nightstream Film Festival this week—and its satire of the gig economy that has taken ahold of our everyday lives is perhaps a bit too on the nose. However, director and screenwriter Noah Hutton‘s world-building makes the exploration of his “parallel near-present” endlessly engrossing.

Set in a world where the gig economy is also thriving, Lapsis follows perennial hustler Joe (Dean Imperial)—aptly named because he's the epitome of an average Joe—whose less than legal methods of making money are just barely supporting the expensive treatments needed for his brother Jamie who suffers from the fictional chronic fatigue illness “omnia.”

Around him, the world is changing and becoming more reliant on an opaque universal technology called quantam that connects and powers all devices—whether this is a play on 5G is unclear. However, the technology is reliant on a complex network of cables that connect various quantam boxes. And as advanced as the technology is, it needs humans to physically lay cable above ground to connect the boxes, which is what sprout an entirely new gig economy.

The poster for Noah Hutton's Lapsis. Courtesy of the Nightstream Film Festival.

CBLR is one of the monopolistic ride-sharing-like companies that provide “cablers” the ability to pick up routes, upgrade their equipment, and get paid for making connections between quantum boxes. In an effort to pay for a new treatment for his brother, Joe signs up for the service through questionable channels since the procurement of a “medallion” is difficult to come by.

The “medallion” he receives once belonged to “Lapsis Beeftech,” a name that strikes strained reactions from the more experienced cablers that he encounters on his first route. Joe is clearly out of his league. With shoddy equipment, an electronic voice telling him when he's authorize to take a break, and automated cable-laying machines that threaten to take over you route if you don't work fast enough, it's not the easiest way to make a buck. But you can make a lot of them if you play things right.

Lapsis, which comes on the heels of movies like Sorry to Bother You, takes aim at the downfalls of capitalism. And while its takedown could sometimes feel overwrought—especially in the awkwardly paced second half—the movie forces us to take a look at the marginalized people all around us that are so essential to making our everyday lives function—and all of their mistreatment at the hands of massive corporations.

The movie's plot doesn't kick until about halfway through when Joe meets a fellow cabler named Anna (Madeline Wise) who clues him into the drawbacks of the gig—you have to work towards impossibly high goals to make money, then you have to spend that money on your own equipment to meet those impossibly high goals. She also hints to some mystery around the automated cable-laying robots and Joe's “Lapsis Beeftech” screen name that is meant to give the movie some structure.

Instead, the second half is disappointingly tame based on the more than adept tension building up until that point. Still, Hutton's world-building is reason enough to dive into Lapsis‘ interpretation of the world around us. If anything, it'll give you pause the next time you get a food delivery or hop into an Uber.

More movies, less problems

Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

💌 Sign up for our weekly email newsletter with movie recommendations available to stream.

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.