Tag: 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival

‘X’ is a Texas Boogie Nights Massacre | movie review
X follows a young group of aspiring filmmakers who travel to an isolated farm to film a porn. It doesn’t go well.

X is a detailed and well-studied recreation of 70s exploitation B-movies and the Golden Age of the slasher genre, right down to the film grain. However, director Ti West does more than homage. He adds his own darkly comedic tone to mine some real laughs in between the carnage as well as a surprisingly complex pair of villains — which is why a prequel film has already been shot. Nostalgic cinematography, a tense Carpenter-esque score, and deliciously camp performances — particularly from Brittany Snow, Mia Goth, and Martin Henderson — make X a gloriously bloody and entertaining throwback. Like Boogie Nights by way of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

X is now playing in theaters.

The most fascinating thing about X is how straightforward it is. There are no tricks, no twists, no sudden genre shifts or gotcha moments, but that’s exactly what director Ti West intends. He’s not looking to reinvent the slasher genre, he wants to celebrate every single gritty bloody detail right down to the film grain — although The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is clearly his biggest inspiration. But that’s not to say he doesn’t have some tricks up his sleeves.

The glorious The Cabin in the Woods, perhaps the most meta meta-horror movie that lovingly skewers the genre for its repetitive tropes, posits that the victims of slashers are being punished for their youth. Not just being young, but taking advantage of that youth. However, movies from the genre’s heyday in the 70s and 80s personify that punishment as an inhumane mysterious force — Michael Myers, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees. West subverts that trope and instead finds humanity in the antagonists. If anything, X’s villains are devastatingly human.

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But first, let’s go back to 1979. You know the setup. A group of six young people travels to an isolated part of Texas for a weekend of fun. Though, in a Boogie Nights-like twist the group isn’t just doing it for their own pleasure. They’re shooting an adult film to take advantage of the newly formed home video market. Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), in particular, is obsessed with being a star. Something her boyfriend and film’s producer Wayne (Martin Henderson) is convinced she’s destined for.

Maxine’s co-stars Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi aka musician Kid Cudi), on the other hand, are more seasoned porno actors. Rounding out the group are the film’s director RJ (Owen Campbell) and his girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who are more conservative compared to their companions, especially Lorraine who didn’t even know what the project was.

In an effort to keep costs low the group is shooting the film in the farmhouse on the isolated property of elderly couple Howard (Stephen Ure) and his wife Pearl (Goth, playing double duty in impressive old age makeup). West makes it clear that something is amiss with his chilling bloody cold open, the foreboding music by composers Tyler Bates and Chelsea Wolfe, and classic horror shots framing the villains with menace. We don’t get a clear view of Wayne or Pearl’s faces for some time.

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After some brilliant slow-burn tension building where we begin to learn a bit more about our characters, hell breaks loose. Or should I say, Pearl breaks loose and X pivots to being a full-blown slasher with all the blood and gore you could hope for. Still, West finds depths in its narrative while maintaining its horror elements. Maxine and Pearl feel like parallel stories running in two different timelines. Pearl could’ve been Maxine in an earlier life and Maxine could become Pearl. X presupposes that the real horror here is time. It highlights the brilliance of casting Mia Goth in both roles and the decision to film a prequel in tandem.

As straightforward of an homage to 70s and 80s horror X is, it mines the thematic depths of youth, time, regret, sex, and the horror genre itself. Horror and porn are often lumped together as gratuitous and deviant as they deal with the taboo topics of sex and gore. West questions asks why that is the case with his narrative. Why do we find two people having sex on camera so alluring yet unacceptable (the same for violence)? The answer is the movie itself.

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March 17, 2022
‘Sissy’ directors and star Aisha Dee chat their new horror | Interview
Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes chat their new horror-comedy Sissy, which premiered at SXSW, along with star Aisha Dee

Sissy, which opened the Midnighter section at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival, stunned audiences (you can read my review here) and was acquired by Shudder for release this year. Directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes chatted with me about the movie’s origins, why it needed to be a horror, and balancing the tricky tone between scares and laughs. Star Aisha Dee, best known for her role on The Bold Type, talks about how she empathized with her character, how the pandemic helped her prepare for the role, and what zodiac sign she thinks she’d be.

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March 17, 2022
‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ is a bloody game of Among Us | SXSW review
Accusations fly between a group of friends after a stormy game night turns deadly in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Together they must find the killer among them.

Bodies Bodies Bodies is like a dark, bloody slasher version of Clue with a hint of Mean Girls and Lord of the Flies that takes place over a single night where accusations fly between a group of friends after a body is discovered on a stormy night — like a sick game of Among Us. Its perfectly constructed mystery is punctuated by its slasher-like horror filmmaking and a flurry of terrific performances — particularly a hilarious Rachel Sennott — that feel so lived-in yet representative of the privileged Gen Z TikTok elite as a whole. The delicate balancing of tones, storylines, and relationships culminates in a hilariously satisfying ending that will make you want to watch the movie over and over again.

Have you ever wondered how a real-life game of Among Us would play out? Or what the cult classic comedy Clue would be like as an actual horror movie? Well, Bodies Bodies Bodies may have answered that question and then some. Not that director Halina Reijn nor the screenwriters* intentionally took those properties as direct inspiration. It is unique in both narrative and execution even if you see shades of other movies in it — Scream and Mean Girls also come to mind. What it does have in common is it’s a complete blast, especially for genre fans. Though, it still even has a few tricks up its sleeves for them.

Of course, like any good slasher (or slasher send-up), Bodies Bodies Bodies takes place in a remote family mansion where Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) is bringing her new girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) to a hurricane party at her childhood friend David’s (Pete Davidson) parents’ house to brave a hurricane that is forecasted to hit that night. Immediately, there is tension within the group. It’s clear that past baggage is going to plague the night. David and his girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) seem at odds for a variety of reasons but particularly because Alice (Rachel Sennott) brought her hot older boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace) along, causing David to feel threatened. Then there’s Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) who doesn’t seem all that happy that Sophie brought Bee uninvited.

And with incredible comic timing, the storm starts barrelling down.

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Armed with drinks, glow sticks, enough cocaine to make a drug lord jealous, and a sprawling mansion to use as a playground, the friends hunker down for the longest night of their lives. In an attempt to break the tensions, the group decides to play the game Bodies Bodies Bodies where one player is secretly chosen as the killer and “kills” one of the other players by tapping them on the shoulder in the dark. Then, the remaining players must figure out who did it — like a game of Clue. All is well until the lights go out and the friends split up. Bad choice. A body is discovered and a real-life version of the game is now afoot.

Throughout the night, more bodies are found, more people are killed, and suspects are cleared and uncleared. It’s like an entry in the Scream franchise that takes place in real-time over a single night.

What I love about Bodies Bodies Bodies is how natural the relationships and interactions feel. Like you’re getting a glimpse into the deep tanglings of this friend group, which color the accusations. In one of the best and funniest scenes, the friends use Gen Z buzzwords to levy suspicion onto each other and remove it from themselves. “Stop gaslighting me,” one character says. “He’s a libra moon,” says another.

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Eventually, the group begins to play oppression Olympics. “Accuse the black girl,” “I had PTSD from that,” “I was poor.” In reality, none of these kids are completely oppressed. When one claims she’s poorer than the others she’s immediately slapped with, “your parents are professors at a University!” to which she replies, “it’s public.” It’s the kind of tongue-in-cheek skewering of Gen Z wokeness that makes the movie a delight to watch outside of its horror elements.

However, the commentary doesn’t feel out-of-place. It feels so natural that the characters would use those defenses if they were accused of murder and their reactions, as ridiculous and hilarious as they are, never feel ingenuine. The way that the movie plays out is perfectly satisfying. Reijn paces the movie with precision so that not a single moment feels wasted and the momentum seemingly never stops.

Bodies Bodies Bodies feels like a perfect example of what the horror genre is going to look like after its renaissance in the early part of the 2010s. Like Get Out or Ready or Not, it uses the tried and true horror staples to build tension and suspense while using the world we live in to color it in complex shades that reflect back the horror of our society. But who am I kidding? More than anything, this is a bloody, hilarious, slasher of a good time. Everything else, icing on the cake. Or, I guess, a line of coke on the dresser.

* Kristen Roupenian, Sarah Delappe, Chloe Okuno, Joshua Sharp, Aaron Jackson

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March 14, 2022
A movie like ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ has never existed before | SXSW review
In Everything Everywhere All At Once, an unremarkable Chinese-American woman finds out that the fate of the multiverse lies in her (and her other versions) hands.

When I say a movie like Everything Everywhere All At Once has never existed, I mean that a movie like it has truly never existed. Though it spans countless genres, experiments with several mediums, and references dozens of films from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Ratatouille to Kill Bill to In the Mood For Love it feels so singular and assured. Director duo Daniels crafted a romp through the multiverse that is an assault on the mind as much as it is an assault on the senses. Absurd, hilarious, heartfelt, thrilling. It is one of the best movies of the year.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is playing at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival.

Everything Everywhere All At Once may be one of the most accurate movie titles in history. Filmmaking duo Daniels (Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert) throw everything, kitchen sink and all, into their action-thriller-comedy romp through their version of the multiverse — like the silly fever dream ideas of every person in existence brought to life in insanely colorful detail. The movie is so jam-packed that its cinematic references range from Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey to Pixar’s animated Ratatouille to Wong Kar-wai’s arthouse romance In the Mood For Love. And these aren’t just throwaway references. Each movie is woven inseparably into the plot.

That’s not to say it’s unfocused either. The movie’s story, for as complex as the lore gets, is relatively straightforward and it earns nearly every one of its digressions — yes, even the thread about humans with hot dogs for fingers and the universe where humans never evolved and are simply insentient rocks that communicate in subtitles. I’m telling you, this movie is one of a kind. But, as we know, bizarreness doesn’t necessarily make a good movie — though it certainly makes for an entertaining one. It’s how Daniels use the bizarreness to tell their story that makes it great.

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Evelyn is a Chinese-American immigrant who, along with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), owns a laundromat that she works hard to run, albeit robotically. After years on the grind she’s simply going through the motions, something that has distanced her from her husband and daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu). It’s not even that she’s unhappy with her life — she’s simply not living it. She has one problem though: she hasn’t paid her taxes. That leads Evelyn, Waymond and her father Gong Gong (James Hong) to the IRS where inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis) performs an audit of their business.

But like anyone trying to pay their taxes, things quickly go awry.

In a bit of a exposition dump that blessedly make the concept of the multiverse easy-to-follow, Waymond, or at least another version of Waymond from a different universe called the Alpha-verse, inhabits the body of… this universe’s Waymond (okay, maybe it’s not that easy to follow, but the Daniels find ways to guide you through it) and explains to Evelyn that every decision you make splits off a new universe and different version of you and your life. That means there are millions of versions of Evelyns and Waymonds. Alpha-verse Waymond explains that in his universe Evelyn created a technology that gives them the ability to jump across the multiverse into different versions of themselves.

He seeked out this universe’s Evelyn to recruit her to help defeat the evil inter-dimensional Jobu Tupaki, another version of Joy who wants to destroy the multiverse, by teaching her how to shift between different versions of herself to access their abilities. In perhaps the most impressive fight scene of the many impressive fight scenes in the movie, Evelyn shifts into a version of herself who broke up with Waymond before they could get married and instead became a martial arts master and subsequently a successful actress — yes, it’s as meta as it sounds — and fights a version of Deidre who is a pro-wrestler. Yes, Jamie Lee Curtis gets in on the action too.

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Like The Matrix where Evelyn is Neo and Waymond is Morpheus, she must try to master the ability to jump between versions and prevent Jobu Tupaki from taking over her universe. In the process we see movie star Evelyn (an homage to In the Mood for Love), sign spinner Evelyn, and hibachi chef Evelyn which features the movie’s funniest references to Ratatouille and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Underneath all the absurdity, though, is a well-realized exploration of the Asian and Asian-American experiences. Coming into the movie, I didn’t expect to be taken so emotionally by the movie’s deeper themes as the son of Asian immigrants. The experience of generational trauma takes form in Evelyn and Joy’s relationship — one strained by her mother’s desire to hold onto her vision of what Joy’s life should be, which is fueled by Evelyn’s father’s vision of what her life should be. The parent-child relationship has become a focus of movies lately. Perhaps because the millennial generation is now watching their boomer parents reach the later years of their lives. Daniels explore the tension of how one generation’s regrets, trauma, dreams bleed into the next but are often rejected because each generation is born into a different world.

To try to write about Everything Everywhere All At Once is like trying to explain the dream you had last night. The details are outlandish, maybe a little fuzzy, sometimes terrifying, but often connected to something in your subconscious. Some thought or insecurity or desire deep down that is suppressed deep in your psyche for one reason or another. On its face, Everything Everywhere is a wickedly entertaining, high-octane action romp that is destined for instant cult classic status. But it has more on its mind than hot dog hands, butt plugs and world-ending everything bagels — not just more. Everything.

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March 12, 2022
‘Jethica’ is a charming little ghost story | SXSW review
When Jessica’s stalker follows her to New Mexico, she and her friend Elena look for an otherworldy solution to get rid of him

Jethica feels like a ghost story told on a cool night next to a crackling campfire… or in the backseat of a car in an abandoned parking lot post-car sex, which is actually where Elena (Callie Hernandez) is recounting the story of how she killed someone to her hookup. As she speaks we start to see the story unfold before us with all the detail and witty tongue-in-cheek humor that any person telling a story would include. Because of that conceit, the movie is a lean 63 minutes of an interesting story well-told — and that’s what makes it great

Jethica is playing at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival

Full review coming soon.

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March 13, 2022
Patton Oswalt is Oscar-worthy in ‘I Love My Dad’ | SXSW review
An estranged father tries to reconnect with his son by catfishing him on Facebook in I Love My Dad

I Love My Dad takes the Mrs. Doubtfire conceit and updates it for the modern age as a father, desperate to reconnect with his son, catfishes him with a fake Facebook profile. Director-writer James Morosini creates a funny and entertaining self-portrait of his own life while also finding ingenious ways to present our digital life in the real world. Though the movie misses the opportunity to go deeper into the character’s psyches, it never losses your attention thanks to its witty screenplay and Patton Oswalt’s terrific performance.

I Love My Dad premiered at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival.

Like Mrs. Doubtfire with a modern twist, a hopelessly estranged father catfishes his son in an attempt to reconnect in I Love My Dad. If the premise of the movie sounds like a trove of cringy moments you would be correct. Writer-director James Morosini, who also stars in the movie, knows that and lets the movie thrive even when it gets “hide your face in your hands” awkward — and trust me, it gets awkward. But what could have easily been a raunchy gross-out comedy is instead empathetic towards both of its leads. It’s unsurprising then to learn that Morosini based the movie on his own life. The opening intertitle even quips, “the following actually happened, my dad told me to tell you it didn’t.”

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The eponymous dad Chuck (Patton Oswald) is not exactly the picture-perfect father. In the opening scene, he and his young son Franklin (played by Morosini as an adult) find a lost dog. While most parents would do the responsible thing and try to find the dog’s owner, Chuck gleefully tells Franklin they should take him in before quickly disposing of a missing poster with the dog’s picture that they come across. Years later, Chuck lives hours away and is estranged from his ex-wife (Amy Landecker) and Franklin.

Chuck tells his co-worker Jimmy (Get Out’s always terrific Lil Rel Howery) that Franklin has now cut him out completely, blocking him everywhere including Facebook, which was Chuck’s only connection with his son. Despite Jimmy’s protests — though it was vaguely his idea — Chuck creates a fake Facebook account under the name Becca (Claudia Sulewski), a waitress at a local diner, and friends Franklin — like an internet-age Mrs. Doubtfire. However, things quickly go array when Franklin messages “Becca” asking why she friended him when they don’t know each other.

Morosini ingeniously weaves the digital and physical together by having “Becca” appear next to Franklin like they’re actually having a face-to-face conversation as they’re talking over messenger. Instead of reading text on a screen, we actually get to see the character interact and convey emotion. But the movie takes it one step further.

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Just like in real-life texting conversations, sometimes messages get lost in translation, lose their context, or are conveyed differently. Like in some moments when a character uses sarcasm, it comes out as deadpan before they clarify with a “LOL,” which the actors act out. It makes I Love My Dad an immersive experience. In another scene, “Becca” speaks in near gibberish as Chuck, texting while driving (shaking my head) types with typos. It makes the movie feel so relevant and relatable — like Kimi earlier this year — even if it takes place in the past.

After some initial awkwardness, “Becca” quickly earns Franklin’s trust by connecting with his loneliness. Something that they discuss as they message more and more frequently. However, things take a turn when Franklin starts to form some very real feelings for the fake Becca. Although he initially tries to end contact, Chuck is quickly pulled back in as it’s the only way he’s been able to really connect with his son. Soon, though, they hit a point of no return when Franklin suggests he and Becca should meet up — with the help of Chuck. If you thought things were awkward before, they just got worst.

It took me a moment to understand Chuck as a character. The ending, without revealing spoilers, gives him a sort of redemption — whether it’s earned will be up to you. The movie is perhaps a little too sympathetic to him without giving us a deeper explanation for his behavior or real consequence. Perhaps that’s a function of Morosini’s closeness to the story, which in a way is a sweet homage to his imperfect father. Perhaps, an imperfect but charming movie is exactly what this story deserves.

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March 12, 2022
‘The Cow’ is empty calories | SXSW review
A couple heads out to a remote cabin for a romantic getaway, but only one of them returns. The Cow follows Winona Ryder’s Kath as she unravels the mystery.

The Cow starts and ends showing promise for Eli Horowitz as a director. However, the movie’s undercooked non-linear narrative and rough screenplay undercut any dramatic tension or character development needed for us to be engrossed by it. It’s especially unfortunate considering the movie’s intriguing premise and Winona Ryder’s starring role.

The Cow premiered at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival.

Things are not as they seem at the start of Eli Horowitz’s feature debut The Cow, which premiered at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. It’s clear, from the eerie score to the intermittent cuts to a mysterious shipping container tucked away in an overgrown field in the forest, that couple Kath (Winona Ryder) and Max’s (10 Cloverfield Lane’s John Gallagher Jr.) weekend getaway isn’t as straightforward as we’d imagine. That becomes abundantly clear when they arrive at the isolated cabin Max has booked and find another couple, Greta (Brianne Tju) and Al (It’s Owen Teague), there already. Realizing that the cabin has been double-booked, Greta invites Kath and Max to share the space for the night, to which Kath reluctantly agrees.

After a mostly innocent night of games and conversation, Kath turns in for the night. She doesn’t feel quite right in the group. It makes sense considering there’s an age difference between her and Max, who is in his 20s like Greta and Al. When she wakes the next morning, Greta and Max are gone. When she finds Al he reveals that he found the pair hooking up and that they ran off together. A confused and distraught Kath leaves the cabin behind — and the mystery of where Max went off to. Sometime later, though, she decides that she owes it to herself to find out what happened for him to run off so suddenly. With the help of the cabin’s owner (Dermot Mulroney), she slowly finds herself unraveling exactly what happened which is more sinister, as promised.

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The Cow has a lot of ideas it’s trying to grapple with while also maintaining its mystery. Greta and Al are admonished as typical young ultra-progressives who describe that they’re together, but “not in that capitalist consumerist cis-normative bullshit way.” At another point in a flashback, one of Kath’s friends chides to Max, “who knew it was so expensive to look like you don’t give a shit.” It’s that kind of ham-fisted commentary on “wokeness” that bogs down screenplay. If you removed those scenes and only included the mystery elements The Cow would make for a compelling-enough short film.

The final act of the movie shows the most promise for Eli Horowitz as a filmmaker as the pieces of the movie’s non-linear narrative finally form a clearer picture and moves it to a full-tilt genre movie, which I’m almost hesitant to say because the largely flat second act never gives you hints towards its conclusion. Perhaps that’s the movie’s problem. It doesn’t earn its admittedly interesting twist, and what is in place of a proper build is difficult to stomach.

I wish I had more positive things to say about The Cow if only because Winona Ryder deserves more starring roles. And while she does the best she can with the material she’s given, it all feels like empty calories.

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March 14, 2022
Andrea Riseborough gets her moment with ‘To Leslie’ | SXSW review
The titular Leslie in To Leslie finds herself deep in the throes of alcoholism after winning the lottery six years earlier.

To Leslie gets incredibly far on Andrea Riseborough’s watershed performance in the titular role. The movie’s depiction of alcoholism is raw and unflinching — until it isn’t. What begins as a deep exploration of regret, addiction, and reckoning with the past lightens to a familiar feel-good story of redemption that doesn’t feel completely earned. Still, To Leslie finds the winning numbers to get you to feel something.

To Leslie is playing at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival.

At last call on one of the many nights that Leslie (Andrea Riseborough) spends on a bender in the local bar the jukebox starts to play “Are You Sure” by Willie Nelson. He croons out the question, “are you sure that this is where you want to be?” We don’t get to know Leslie before she wins $160k in the lottery. We don’t even get to know her immediately after. We catch up with her six years later — broke, homeless, and fully in the throes of alcoholism. Screenwriter Ryan Binaco takes a risk to forego the opportunity for the audience to build empathy for the movie’s protagonist — but that might be the point. He challenges us to find something in Leslie. Something to care about.

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That’s a difficult task considering where we find her. Kicked out of the motel she’s been staying out for not paying rent, she seeks out her son James (Owen Teague, who appears in The Cow, which is also premiering at SXSW) who lives in a nearby city. When we meet James the juxtaposition with his mother is stark. He has it together. He has a job, an apartment, friends. Everything that Leslie doesn’t have. And while he’s happy to house his mother while she gets off her feet, he has one rule: no drinking.

To Leslie’s portrait of addiction feels so grounded. Early in the movie, James confronts Leslie after his roommate’s money goes missing. In one breath, she goes from denying the accusation to playing the guilt card (“I am sick”) to digging for sympathy (“I wanna be a good mama”) to anger when she realizes she’s not going to get her way. Riseborough, a chameleon in every role she’s in, is so good that she makes you almost believe each lie — it’s second nature to her at this point. However, what is even more heartbreaking is James’ retort: “I’m not even 20. I can’t even drink yet and I have to take care of my mother.” Teague, with his limited screen time, haunts the rest of the film with that line.

Eventually, she finds her way back to her hometown where she finds refuge behind a small motel run by Sweeney (Marc Maron) and Royal (Andre Royo). Though she’s initially run off the property, Sweeney sees something in her and offers her job cleaning rooms in exchange for a small salary and room and board. Well, if anything, he tricks her into taking a job by acting as if she applied for one. It’s like he knows that it has to be her idea for her to commit to it. As the story unfolds, we’ll learn exactly why Sweeney has taken such an interest in Leslie, and why he’s so adept at dealing with such a severe alcoholic. And as their relationship unfurls, Leslie gets her redemption.

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The differences between the first and second halves of To Leslie are stark. Where the first half feels like an intimate and sometimes brutal vision of addiction, the second takes on a feel-good underdog narrative. At times, it feels like the plot is too easy and devoid of conflict. As the first half is unflinching, the second flinches. Thanks to Riseborough and Maron’s charming performances and terrific chemistry it doesn’t completely lose your attention, but it never reaches the heights of its opening scenes.

Director Michael Morris’ talents are on clear display here, particularly in the well-calibrated performances. But the story left me yearning for more. There are so many threads that we could have followed. A deeper exploration of Leslie’s psyche and how winning the lottery drove her so deep into a hole, more background on Sweeney’s past, and Leslie’s relationship with relative Nancy (Oscar winner Allison Janney), who at some point took James under her wing and came to resent Leslie in the process. Despite its shortcomings, there’s something in To Leslie that got to me. Maybe it’s earnestness. It made me feel something. It made me feel something for Leslie, and that’s all it wants for its audience: empathy.

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March 13, 2022
‘Sissy’ skewers millennial culture | SXSW review
Sissy follows a young influencer who has to face her childhood bully during a bachelorette weekend in the Australian bush. It doesn’t go well.

In the vein of last year’s Promising Young Woman, Sissy takes a bubblegum pink-colored satirical approach to tackle its bleak subject matter to devilishly entertaining and constantly surprising results. Paired with a star-making performance from Aisha Dee, Sissy is a multi-hyphenate genre must-see.

Sissy is playing at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival.

Go watch Sissy. I’m telling you this now because the fun of the movie is to watch the precarious balancing act between tones and genres that writer-directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes perform — and the less you know about their plan the better. Your ignorance is their weapon. But don’t worry, they’ll reward you when the movie shifts into high gear.

Still not convinced? Read on, but you’ve been warned.

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The movie begins with Cecilia (Aisha Dee) staring straight into the camera with a warm sincere smile as she tells us, “I am loved. I am special. I am doing enough.” As the camera pulls out, we realize that we’re watching an Instagram Live and that Cecilia is a wellness influencer — or “mental health advocate” as she puts it. It’s easy to figure out because as soon as she’s finished with her mantra she begins to sell us on a face mask cheekily called “Elon Mask.”

It’s the perfect way to introduce us to Sissy’s hyper-stylized tongue-in-cheek world. As the live ends, the facade cracks and we see that Cecilia’s life is in a lot more disarray than the perfectly curated pastel backdrop that her live took place on. Her apartment is a mess as she obsessively watches as the likes and comments on her video pour in.

The juxtaposition between Cecilia’s online persona and her real-life one is exacerbated when she runs into her childhood BFF Emma (Barlow) — who still calls her by her childhood nickname “Sissy” — who she hasn’t seen in more than a decade. Cecilia is taken aback by the encounter but fortified when Emma is impressed by her online success and is invited to her engagement party where she is subsequently invited to Emma and her fiancé Fran’s (Lucy Barrett) bachelorette weekend at a house in the Australian bush. Unexpectedly for Cecilia, the house belongs to Alex (Emily De Margheriti), her childhood bully who also happens to be Emma’s maid of honor. Yes, it’s as awkward as you think it is. It seems that old habits die hard.

Then, things take a turn.

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What begins as a satirical comedy about millennial culture quickly turns into a full-out horror-comedy slasher send-up as tensions rise to a boiling point. And when I say a slasher, I mean a slasher with bloody brutal kills that would make Wes Craven proud. It’s an unexpected turn for a movie that teases that it has more up its sleeve, but nothing as absurd as a bloody bathtub scalping by way of rejuvenating spa.

I’m going to keep details sparse about how the movie gets there. That’s part of the fun, but its themes are clear. In the same vein as Promising Young Woman, Sissy directly juxtaposes its dark subject matter with a hyper-stylized bubblegum pink-colored lens. In particular, it focuses on the millennial impulses of success, clout chasing, and the desire to be better without getting better.

Sissy is a hard movie to pin down in the same way that it’s hard to pin down any of its characters — Daniel Monks‘ Jamie and Yerin Ha‘s Tracey complete the cast. This is a movie without any real heroes. That is, except for Cecilia. Aisha Dee’s star-is-born performance keeps you completely captivated in her, even when your sympathies start to wane. By the end, Sissy will have you cheering for more carnage — and carnage it will deliver.

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More movies, less problems
Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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March 12, 2022