Not a film I'd heard of until a minute before watching, and probably not surprising. It's a quiet little low-budget independent film that doesn't seem to have gained a lot of attention.
Not that budget needs to be a block to creativity, and it's good news in that regard. At first, the filming style was jarringly showy - all flickering screens and choppy editing. As the credits ended and the first scene began, I commented that I would switch off in ten minutes if it didn't improve. I'd meant it, as well, so the fact that I forgot my own threat and watched to the end possibly speaks volumes.
With a very small cast and a focus that straddles the line between intimate and mundane, this film relies on the quality of its casting to make it fly, and it certainly has that. There are four main characters (five if you count the girl at the video store) and the only real "name" among the actors is Wil Wheaton, who is in the news this week for telling some White House staffer to keep Patrick Stewart's name out of his "f-cking Nazi mouth".
Looking at the blurb for the film, Wheaton's performance seems to have garnered praise for being disturbing. It certainly works well, especially considering we only see him on a screen and he doesn't directly interact with anyone else. And even more so now that I've watched clips from
Ben Hollis's 1986 Rent-A-Friend video on which this premise is based, since the character model and a number of the interactions were lifted directly from this. You'd expect the fourth wall breaking to become extreme, but I like that it takes its time and crosses those lines in a way that's subtle enough for even the viewer to question if they heard something correctly.
Really, though, Wil's extroverted performance relies on its opposing force, which comes here from lonely, abused and needy Brian Landis Folkins as David. It's important that the viewer can sympathise with David , and Brian's performance provides the crucial grounding. Here's a character who is looking after the mother who made his childhood hell - now living with advanced dementia - ten years after his father's suicide. He hasn't had time to find out who he is, much less meet friends or partners. There's a transactional element to his relationships - most clearly shown at the video dating service where the receptionist's courtesy and friendliness is dependent on the payment she knows is coming, and the cameraman watches David pour out his heart, then orders him to do it again while keeping to a thirty second window (and he sends out the second, shorter, terrible take), practically ensuring David will remain on the shelf. Brian, by the way, seems to have a mostly theatrical acting background, and it adds weight to this role. I can see why this role would appeal to a stage performer. It looks as though it could easily adapt to a play.
On paper, I wouldn't have thought I needed David to find the perfect match, but this actually turns out to be the thing that really makes this work. Because then he has to choose between a very real person where there is a connection and understanding between the two, and the first friend he ever made - who just happens to be someone he's never met reading out lines on a grainy video. There's also a vein of homoerotic subtext, which is mostly about connection and dependence rather than sex, but lines are crossed there as well.
Although set in 1990, this has never been more relevant than in 2026, where social media neediness and AI dependence is everywhere. David and Andy are essentially Sue and Linda from
Ann Droid.
American Psycho also came to mind with this film, with the question of how much is truth, and how much is coming from the central character's own mind. And I like that it's unresolved.
It's a fairly miserable experience, watching this film. It's dark and tragic and ugly. I highly doubt I would ever watch it again, but there's something about it that has been hard to shake, and that's usually a good thing in a film.
