Categories: Movies

‘Poser’ is a punk-rock exploration of obsession — Tribeca 2021

Lennon Gates played by Sylvie Mix (left) and Bobbi Kitten played by Bobbi Kitten (right) in POSER. Tribeca Film Festival. Photographer: Logan Floyd

Poser follows an underground alt music fan as she finds a way to infiltrate the community and get closer to her idol

Poser is an engrossing, darkly funny, and embarrassingly relatable trip into the underground alt music scene that proves we’re all posers in some way.

Poser, which premiered in the U.S. Narrative Competition at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, begins with a question, “how would you describe your music?” The answers range from queer death pop to experimental indie to indie pop to “I’m in a duo, I wouldn’t really identify ourselves as a band.” It’s directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon’s — the film is their film debut — tongue-in-cheek way to tell us that they’re in on the joke — even if they have complete reverence for the underground alt scene that they’re exploring.

The movie’s protagonist Lennon (Sylvie Mix) also has reverence for the community. Actually, reverence might be too light of a word. Obsession is more apt. She’s driven by her desire to be a part of it to start a podcast which brings her through warehouse shows, house parties, and underground concerts where she seeks to learn exactly what makes the people she looks up to tick. That’s when she encounters Bobbi Kitten — the lead singer of Columbus, Ohio based band Damn the Witch Siren.

Bobbi is everything Lennon wants to be. Confident, cool, creative, and a fixture in the scene. Lennon uses her podcast to learn more about each artist, what makes them tick, and taking recordings of their song — keeping them highly obsessively organized on cassette tapes in her small apartment. Though hilariously she tells her sister she wants an apartment where “the bed is in the kitchen.” You know, for the vibes.

Eventually, her podcast and connections lead her to Bobbi. When Lennon mentions she’s also a songwriter Bobbi asks her to perform a song, which she does. This leads her to becoming Bobbi’s sort-of protege, shadowing her through her life — exactly what she wanted. You could guess where this leads.

Poser, for better or worse never quite goes full-tilt horror, like its clear inspirations — Single White Female and Persona chief among them — however what it does become is an engrossing psychodrama about obsession, creativity, and the very human desire to be a part of something. Lennon makes a few errors along the way as she finally begins to assimilate in the community she desperately wants to participate in and it all begins to crumble around her.

But Poser never goes as far as you want it to. At least genre-wise. Still, it’s impressively assured for a first feature, especially considering the very premise could go off the rails extremely fast. Constantly engaging, darkly funny, and, especially for us indie kids, immensely (and embarrassingly relatable) — I worked for an alternative radio station in college for god’s sake.

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

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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.