- SXSW 2026: Chili Finger, Kill Me, Family Movie (March 16, 2026)
It’s always fun to pick out themes of a festival and wonder what they say about the state of the world. Of course, it seems like every other Sundance has a dozen road trip movies about families finding each other, but the truly unexpected visual or narrative motifs can often be the most fascinating. What does it say about 2026 that people are getting sliced and diced in every other movie at SXSW, often by losing fingers? Discuss amongst yourselves.
The good news is that several of these films in which blades meet flesh have been pretty good, especially two in this particular dispatch. One of the best comedies of SXSW 2026 is the wickedly clever and unexpectedly violent “Chili Finger,” a Midwestern production that echoes early films by the Coen brothers like “Blood Simple,” “Raising Arizona,” and “Fargo.” It’s funny to be old enough to remember how so many indie filmmakers tried and failed to do the Coen thing in the ‘90s only to now feel kind of nostalgic for a brand of dark humor that’s not common today. The truth is that those films dubbed “Coen-esque” usually faltered because filmmakers didn’t realize how difficult it is to balance violence and humor in a way that doesn’t feel glib or even exploitative. One of the many joys of Edd Benda and Stephen Helstad’s film is watching them thread that needle: keeping the proceedings both tense and funny at the same time.
“Chili Finger” is extremely loosely based on a true story, the writer/directors taking that tabloid tale and turning it into something both hilarious and even moving, a movie about a mother who is so rattled by becoming an empty nester that she opens a door to the unthinkable and can’t close it again. So many Coen films are about ordinary people who make really bad decisions, usually welcoming violence into their lives and realizing that they can’t take it back. Benda and Helstad turn the story of Anna Ayala, a woman who fraudulently claimed to find a finger in a Wendy’s chili bowl, into something strikingly relatable and funny, thanks in large part to the best work of Judy Greer’s career.
The always-welcome performer shines as Jess, a Wisconsin lawyer who tries (and fails) to hold back the tears as her only daughter goes off to college. Not only does this mean she’s stuck now with only husband Ron (Sean Astin) but she’s going to be reminded more often that they don’t have enough money to visit their out-of-state child. They can’t even afford to replace their bed frame. It’s not that Ron is a bad guy—Astin is great at playing a sort of unambitious-but-kind Midwestern dude—but he seems to only find joy in his near-daily visits to a regional fast-food chain called Blake Junior’s. While at lunch there one day, Jess finds a finger in her chili. To say chaos ensues would be an understatement.
At first, it seems like an executive named after her father, Blake (an effective Madeline Wise) will handle it all. She offers Jess and Ron a sizable amount of money, but it comes with a clause: They can never come to Blake Junior’s again. This is kind of a dealbreaker for Ron, and the negotiating intensifies until they’re walking out with $100k. When daddy Blake himself (a wonderful John Goodman) finds out about the payout, he gets suspicious, sending an old friend and enforcer named Dave (Bryan Cranston) to investigate. It becomes clear pretty early that something isn’t right here. After all, the finger isn’t cooked.
“Chili Finger” navigates the ridiculous and the relatable, holding both in the same beat. It is a film about ludicrous people making bad choices, but the writing and ensemble keep those choices believable. In particular, Greer has a marvelous immediacy. We can see the wheels turning in her mind when she’s negotiating or navigating her way out of a new bad situation. Much of the joy of “Chili Finger” comes from how it places compiling problems in its protagonist’s way in a manner that makes watching her get around them a joy in itself. We root for Jess, a character who personifies that brand of Midwestern Nice in that she wants to do the right thing, but you better not get in her way.
There’s a similar effective rooting interest in Peter Warren’s very good “Kill Me,” which features the best acting to date by the great Charlie Day, giving a performance that’s not just funny but vulnerable and moving, too. It starts with the kind of whodunit open that promises a tense mystery, and there are elements of that remain throughout Warren’s film, but it’s also a moving character study, a story of depression embedded in a twisting narrative with multiple suspects. It’s ultimately the story of man who thinks he’s investigating his own attempted murder but may come to learn that he’s the most likely suspect. Overall, despite a stronger first half than second, it’s an engaging thriller-comedy that should open doors for both Madden and Day, and, hopefully, signal to people that Allison Williams has greater range than she’s been allowed to show.
The “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star plays Jimmy, who wakes up in his bathtub with his wrists slashed. As he starts to drown, he places a call to 911, but it’s not a typical suicide call. The thing is that Jimmy is positive he didn’t do this. Someone has tried to murder him and frame it as self-harm. Without the help of Margot (Williams) on the other end, it might have worked.
Jimmy wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by family that includes his supportive mother (Jessica Harper) and emotional sister Alice (Aya Cash). You see, Alice found Jimmy four years ago when he tried to take his own life. A past attempt, a recent break-up, a door locked from the inside—it’s all adding up to look like a failed suicide. But Jimmy is insistent that’s not the case. And only Margot might be the one who believes him.
Day has long displayed ace comic timing, but this turn allows him to dig a bit deeper in his arsenal, finding notes of true sadness in Jimmy. Being so distraught that you commit self-harm requires a certain level of acting to be believable but add to that the frustration that would arise from no one around you believing you were a victim of anyone but yourself. There’s a fascinating subtext in Warren’s script and Day’s performance regarding how we don’t really listen to people going through depression or other forms of mental strife. We blame them more often than we truly engage. Even as clues pile up that something weird is going on here, Jimmy remains the #1 suspect because that’s just an easier solution to this mystery. It should also be noted that Williams makes a perfect partner, herself finding a vein of melancholy that she’s not really been allowed to play.
“Kill Me” gets a bit more convoluted because the nature of the mystery requires to do so, but it actually works best when it steps back from the whodunit of it all and captures two semi-broken people becoming whole again through their connection. As someone who has battled depression himself, I often remind myself that for every valley there is a peak. This movie understands that, and we root for Jimmy and Margot to find their mountains again.
Finally, and briefly, there’s the horror-comedy “Family Movie,” a genre exercise starring the easy-to-root-for Bacon family. Kevin Bacon co-directs with his wife Kyra Sedgwick, and the two star alongside their kids Sosie Bacon (so great in “Smile”) and Travis Bacon, who also provides the score. I bet they had some relatives doing some catering and driving on set, too. There’s a subtext of “Family Movie” that might be suggesting that being a family of actors can only lead to violence that’s the best thing about the project, but it fails to overcome some of the truly clunky filmmaking. It’s a movie that I suspect some people will embrace in part because of its rough edges, but that “DIY family project” aspect holds it back too often, sliding into laziness instead.
Bacon plays a D-movie director, the kind of filmmaker who struggles to hold onto a $10k budget for a cheesy horror flick with 10 crew members. While filming his latest project, “Blood Moon,” a light falls on star Jackie Earle Haley, sending him fleeing. It doesn’t help that a behind-the-scenes filmmaker (Liza Koshy) is documenting the production with her iPhone, while also sleeping with Bacon’s son Travis. Adding drama to the proceedings is the fact that Bacon’s daughter Sosie is about to take a better part in a bigger project. The biggest problem of all? His wife and star may be a serial killer.
There are individual beats that work in “Family Movie.” There simply has to be with stars as talented as these, but family projects often have an issue with a lack of outside vision, people able to say that a joke or a plot twist isn’t working because they don’t have to go home with half the cast later that day. “Family Movie” too often feels like talented people aggressively trying to be “goofy” with one another, leaning into genre tropes because they want people to know how much fun they can have together. It’s very cool that the Bacons are so supportive and collaborative. Sadly, that can’t be all to hold onto in a movie.
- “Invincible” Season 4 Is A Thrilling Examination Of Violence and Grief (March 16, 2026)
In the aftermath of the intense showdown with Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the season three finale, the newest season of “Invincible” doesn’t give its characters, or its audience, time to breathe. With many heroes incapacitated or dead, Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) is left to shoulder the weight of responsibility, not only for The Guardians of the Globe, but for his family as well. The season’s first episode dives right back into the well-crafted action sequences the show has become famous for, but there’s a weight in each hit Mark delivers or takes that feels heavier than it has in previous seasons.
The violence he enacted at the end of the previous season weighs heavily on his mind, affecting not only his superhero duties but also spilling out into his personal life, particularly his relationship with Eve (Gillian Jacobs) and his little brother Oliver (Christian Convery). As they navigate the growing pressures around them, Eve’s father complicates matters with his frank disapproval of their relationship, believing Mark’s presence poses a danger to his daughter’s safety. The strain intensifies as Mark tries to protect Oliver from the horrors he grew up with, driving them into conflict. With the stakes higher than ever, the personal and professional pressures begin to suffocate Mark before the threat of a Viltrumite war changes the course of his life.
With its fourth season, “Invincible” dials the action back, replacing these set pieces with some of its most engaging character drama yet. That’s not to say the show lacks its pulsating and often jarring violence; rather, it chooses to engage with what that violence means, rather than simply displaying it. We see this not just with Mark but also with his father, Nolan (J.K. Simmons), who, after two seasons, is finally back as one of the series’ central characters. Re-introduced in the second episode with a cold open detailing how the Viltrumite nearly went extinct, he, too, is grappling with his place in the world after shattering the foundations of his family.
Invincible (Steven Yeun), Omni-Man (JK Simmons)
As the series delves into the fragile core of each of its characters, it becomes a fascinating examination of how violence is passed on through generations, whether it be because of ties to a genocidal nation or the blood one shares with an abusive relative. While these points have been touched on throughout the show’s tenure, never before have they been so closely examined by the show’s writers, and never before has the cast been given such raw material to spit and growl through their clenched teeth. Yeun is fantastic as always, but as the season goes on, and Mark’s inhibition begins to waver, he reaches a depth with his voice acting work that reverberates deep in his chest and ricochets off the walls of each scene he’s in.
With Nolan and Mark coming face-to-face again, the looming weight of his father’s violent legacy plagues each conversation they have. As Mark struggles to get ahold of his urges, “Invincible” confronts its audience with a question that has long troubled generations: is violence inherent, or is it passed down? Despite the very real danger of succumbing to these darker impulses, Mark’s mother and brother often tether him back to earth, as does his desire to be a hero.
This deep-rooted desire is often the only thing that pulls him back from the brink, and when he acts out violently, he is left reeling with a profound sense of shame. Beneath this, though, lies a concerning and unshakable anger that drives him to seek out more bloodshed and slowly transforms into Mark justifying each brutal punch he delivers to an enemy.
Despite some minor pitfalls in its pacing, the latest season of “Invincible” reaches an undeniable series high. This is a show that has always taken risks in its displays of gore and violence, and thankfully, this continues in a bold examination of the impact this has not only on Mark and Nolan but on each character in the series. As an impending war brings this dysfunctional ensemble together in unexpected ways, each of their warring psyches threatens to tear this tentatively put-together team apart before they can even attempt to save Earth from imminent doom. While Mark struggles with the pressure to be the best person he can be, his actions threaten the lives of those he holds close, as well as the “hero” title we have so quickly assigned to him.
Six out of eight episodes were screened for review.
- At This Year’s Oscars, The Show Must Go On (March 16, 2026)
When Conan O’Brien was doing press before the 98th Academy Awards, he would sometimes talk about his ideal scenario for the show. “I think you want something to go wrong occasionally,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I like that feeling. Humans are really good at noticing when something’s spontaneous. When something goes a little off, it’s great. Now, there’s ‘off’ and then there’s ‘really off.’ You don’t want ‘really off.’ You want ‘slightly off.’ You want ‘comically off.’”
By that measurement, O’Brien’s second stint as Oscar host might have disappointed him. To be sure, there was nothing “really off” about the evening. But the “comically off” was also in short supply—and with it, the sort of chaotic, silly energy that supercharges his comedy. Some Oscar telecasts are boring, some are sanctimonious. Last year’s show was a rarity, with O’Brien comfortably taking the reins from Jimmy Kimmel, serving up a vibrant, consistently funny show that fed off its host’s goofy exuberance. This time around, O’Brien had to work harder to steer this predictably ungainly ship of a ceremony. Thankfully, he had the benefit of a strong set of nominees and some very satisfying wins. Along the way, he proved to be a perfect complement to the film industry itself. Whether you’re an Oscar host or the movie business, things don’t always run smoothly, but you go out there and do your best.
Last year, O’Brien took the stage of the Dolby Theatre with a heavy heart. His beloved parents had died three days apart in December 2024, mere months before the broadcast. Not long after his folks’ passing, the Southern California wildfires destroyed approximately 18,000 homes, including O’Brien’s. The Academy Awards aired amidst those tragedies—not to mention Trump’s return to office and the film industry’s continued fears about its shrinking cultural foothold—and O’Brien’s polished professionalism and silly self-deprecation were a balm. A year later, sadly, the world is even darker, and for O’Brien no doubt there was once again a personal sorrow on his mind. In mid-December 2025, Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were killed after attending O’Brien’s annual holiday party, where they had been joined by their son Nick, who has been charged with their murder. There were good reasons for Hollywood not to be in a celebratory mood.
And yet, the ABC broadcast couldn’t have started more strongly, O’Brien seamlessly inserting himself into several of the major nominees, the clever segment tied to the ingenious sequence near the end of “Weapons” when local children chase after Amy Madigan’s evil Aunt Gladys. (O’Brien in the makeup and fright wig was an uproarious sight.) That opener, segueing into the host confidently sauntering on stage, created hope that this show would be an all-timer.
But despite a gorgeous set and some solid monologue jokes, O’Brien didn’t appear as fully in command as he had last year. Some of his bits killed. (Praising “Sinners” auteur Ryan Coogler for declining to become an Academy member because he didn’t feel comfortable judging others, O’Brien quickly told the crowd, “But the rest of you pricks seem to love it!”) But between delivering weak quips about “Hamnet” and Timothée Chalamet’s controversial opera/ballet comments, he couldn’t entirely escape the nagging feeling that this awards season has been painfully long—so long, in fact, that O’Brien and his writing staff struggled to find fresh riffs on movies that have been anatomized for months. (That said, the host’s punchline regarding there being no British acting nominees was especially cutting from someone who tends to avoid political humor.)
Even when O’Brien’s material wasn’t soaring, he handled the evening with aplomb, never losing his rhythm. It was a gift sorely lacking in so many of the evening’s presenters, who appeared to have never rehearsed their script let alone met their co-presenter. (After seeing how awkward they were together, I am not convinced Bill Pullman and his son Lewis have ever spoken.) It didn’t help that so many of the pairings were clearly devised by Disney, which owns ABC, to promote its upcoming films. If you weren’t already utterly unenthused about another Avengers film, Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans’ tortured banter probably snuffed out any lingering interest. Pedro Pascal and Sigourney Weaver were forced to do some labored shtick with a Grogu puppet—“The Mandalorian and Grogu,” only in theaters May 22!—while Anne Hathaway and Anna Wintour radiated anti-chemistry as viewers vaguely remembered that there’s going to be a “Devil Wears Prada” sequel.
Too often, the default pose of the presenters was to stare helplessly into the camera, their unfunny back-and-forth dying in the room. Even the much-hyped reunion of the “Bridesmaids” actresses fizzled. When Javier Bardem and Priyanka Chopra Jonas presented Best International Film, with Bardem starting his remarks by stating clearly, “No to war. And free Palestine,” it wasn’t just a bracing political rallying cry but also a blessed relief from the lame comedy routines.
The Oscars encourage winners not just to spout off a laundry list of names in their acceptance speeches. As usual last night, the winners largely ignored that advice, although Madigan, the evening’s first Oscar recipient, reasonably pointed out that those names are attached to crucial people who got them where they are. It’s a fair point, but the problem is that, frequently, the recitation of names doesn’t include an explanation of why those individuals are so meaningful.
When winners took the time to be more personal, however, the impact was felt. Paul Thomas Anderson has spent much of awards season mourning his longtime friend and collaborator Adam Somner, a producer on “One Battle After Another” who died in November 2024. When Anderson collected the prize for Best Director, he touchingly invoked Somner. Earlier, when he won Best Adapted Screenplay, he talked about his children. “I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them,” he said, “but also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.” Madigan gushed about her longtime husband Ed Harris. Jessie Buckley thanked her husband Freddie, declaring, “You’re the most incredible dad. You’re my best friend, and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you!” Agents, producers and managers are certainly crucial elements to a successful film career, but there’s nothing quite like family and friends who love you.
More than rooting for the “right” movies and performances to win at the Academy Awards, I want the people who collect their trophy to meet the moment—maybe not necessarily with a political speech, but with heartfelt comments that acknowledge the significance of the setting. In fact, a great speech can make me happy for the winner even if I would have chosen someone else for the prize. Take Joachim Trier’s victory for Best International Film with “Sentimental Value,” which was elevated by the filmmaker’s graceful reference to author James Baldwin, whom he paraphrased while telling the crowd, “All adults are responsible for all children. Let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take this seriously into account.”
But it was telling that, again and again, it was the winners from the night’s two most-nominated films, “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners,” that electrified the Dolby Theatre. Autumn Durald Arkapaw took home Best Cinematography for “Sinners”—the first women ever to do so—and impassionately praised the female cinematographers who inspired her and the women in the industry who lifted her up. You sensed that she sensed that history was being made, and her modesty, genuineness and eloquence were deeply moving. That reflection and humility were similarly evident in the acceptance speeches from Anderson, Coogler (who won best Original Screenplay) and Michael B. Jordan, whose Best Actor win felt like the ceremony’s high-energy moment. These men had won plenty of prizes during awards season, but each in their own way stood tall while simultaneously being awed by the magnitude of what was happening.
There’s always a bit of a natural dip in the middle of the Oscars telecast. The show usually starts with a bigger prize (Best Supporting Actor or Best Supporting Actress) to get everybody warmed up before moving onto technical categories, which tend to feature less dynamic speakers. (Part of this may have to do with my own mixed feelings about “Frankenstein” and “F1,” but the unremarkable speeches from those films’ winners were especially snoozy.) But as the evening wound to a close and the major awards were given out, you sensed the electricity build as the anticipated “One Battle After Another” versus “Sinners” battle played out.
Those two films weren’t just the most awarded—each movie managed to pull off one of the evening’s rare upset victories. “One Battle After Another” took home Best Casting—the first time that prize has even been given out—while “Sinners” snagged Best Cinematography. (Many prognosticators had those two wins reversed.) But the connection between the two films runs far deeper. As has been widely documented, both movies came from Warner Bros., where co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have bet big on risky studio fare. And in “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners,” they put their faith in auteurist cinema that plays with genre conventions to say something substantial about American society. Not unlike other recent Best Picture winners “Oppenheimer” and “Anora,” Anderson’s and Coogler’s films suggest the immense rewards of nurturing a filmmaker’s personal vision. With Warner Bros. facing a disconcerting future in which Paramount may swallow the fabled studio, De Luca and Abdy were thanked plenty, and deservedly so: Whatever becomes of Warner Bros., their fostering of great directors will not be soon forgotten.
Still, the overall vibe of last night’s Oscars was businesslike, with a lot of familiar topics revisited in perfunctory ways, often as obligatory punchlines. O’Brien dutifully joked about Hollywood’s struggle to connect with younger viewers, although his bit about the Academy Awards soon moving to YouTube was nicely executed. He mocked Netflix quite nicely twice, first setting his sights on company head Ted Sarandos and then, later, riffing on the studio’s insistence that its programs mindlessly repeat plot points so that distracted viewers don’t get lost. (Sterling K. Brown proved to be a superb Dooley Wilson in O’Brien’s hilariously bastardized version of “Casablanca.”) And, of course, there were the endless paeans from O’Brien, the presenters and the winners, all of whom blandly rhapsodized about The Power Of Movies to bring us together.
While well-meaning, those familiar refrains tended to evaporate instantly. A far more forceful argument were the evening’s top two winners, which slice such banal sentiments into ribbons. “One Battle After Another” is a warped portrait of our current America that inspired endless debate because Anderson refused to make his expansive film too tidy. Similarly, “Sinners” draws from the musical and the horror film to offer a different twisted image of the country, one in which Black lives and culture are threatened by vampiric forces. Challenging and interrogative while also being broadly entertaining, “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” are so distinctive—not to mention straight-up peculiar at times—that they transcend anodyne bromides about film’s ability to speak to the human condition. (Also: I’m begging the Oscars to stop championing “storytellers,” which is barely a notch above “creatives” in icky-cringy industry lingo.)
Even when last night’s show hit predictable lulls, it still managed to deliver some nice interludes. “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” director David Borenstein, who won Best Documentary, drew stark similarities between Russia’s tyrannical government and our own. The tie for Best Live-Action Short was handled elegantly by both presenter Kumail Nanjiani and the two winners. And the “In Memoriam” segment, frequently criticized for its tackiness or the people it omits, was lovely. Partly, that was because it was longer than usual, with Billy Crystal speaking about Rob Reiner and his wife, and then Rachel McAdams getting choked up paying tribute to Diane Keaton, with Barbra Streisand closing the sequence by remembering her “The Way We Were” costar Robert Redford. This Oscars didn’t take a lot of big swings, but you couldn’t say the show lacked ambition. After all, it would have been impossible to recreate the stunning “I Lied to You” sequence from “Sinners” on stage, but damn if the producers didn’t give it their all.
Do I wish there had been more pointed comments about Trump and the war in Iran? Yes, but at the same time, those moments felt judicious, woven into the fabric along with odes to, among other things, motherhood, queer cinema, K-pop, Black culture, and the next generation. At their core, the Academy Awards are really about uplifting and reassuring the masses: that movies can change the world, that movies still matter, that artistic dreams can come true. It can make you roll your eyes sometimes. But even Paul Thomas Anderson, who is hardly known for touchy-feely films, allowed himself a little optimism with his Oscar-winning film. The anxiety-laden “One Battle After Another” ends on a hopeful note—maybe not for this terrible current world, but the one just beyond the road ahead. There are endless treacherous hills on that stretch of highway. Who knows what will become of the Oscars, or even the film industry. Me, I’m not big on The Power Of Movies. I’d rather put my faith in individuals like Anderson and Coogler. Let them take the wheel.
- SXSW 2026: Wishful Thinking, The Saviors (March 15, 2026)
Two of the more interesting synopses in this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival program revealed themselves at the Zach Theater in Austin on back-to-back days to start the festival. While the overall profile of SXSW has dimmed a bit in the last couple years as streaming service originals have dominated too much of the Headliners category, there are still gems to be found when you get away from the Paramount. There’s one in this two-fer dispatch, joined by a film that has some strong ideas but doesn’t do enough with them.
The better of the two is Graham Parkes’ clever “Wishful Thinking,” a sci-fi rom-com that plays almost like “Marriage Story” meets “Colossal.” Do you ever get the sense that the temperature of your relationship has an impact on the world around you? Of course, it’s never one-to-one but we’ve all felt that snowballing effect of good and bad vibes in the way that happiness in our partnerships can feel like it’s leading to better things in other aspects of our life, and the inverse being just as true. Good and bad news comes in waves. What if we could control those waves with our emotions?
What Parkes imagines is a couple so powerful in their vibes that they can shift the world around them, impacting not just their surroundings but the entire world. What if a fight between you and your partner literally led to not only plants dying in your house but an actual earthquake? And what if a great orgasm opened career paths for not just you but those you know? It’s a fascinating way to riff on the idea of manifestation, the belief that we control the world around us, and how being a true partner requires giving up some of that control. It’s hard to manifest happiness when you feel betrayed.
Julia (Maya Hawke) and Charlie (Lewis Pullman) discover they have this remarkable power after attending a session with a pair of twin therapists (both played by Kate Berlant, having a moment in multiple SXSW films, including the Boots Riley and both films in this dispatch) who basically pull out of them their supernatural powers.
Before then, Julia and Charlie seemed headed for a break-up. She’s a game designer struggling with being unable to implement her vision because her boss (Randall Park) forces her to make awful sex games for rich clients. Charlie is a frustrated musician, worried he’s reaching that chapter break in life when he has to put potential futures on the shelf. He works as a sound technician, which allows for a very funny recording session with Jon Hamm, who actually becomes an effective recurring joke.
The sequences in “Wishful Thinking” in which Julia and Charlie learn the power of their relationship are clever and funny. They start fights to see what happens around them, and then they make up and fireworks literally appear in the sky. Of course, it’s all a symbol for how the people close to us actually do shape the way we look at the real world.
Hawke and Pullman are both consistently spectacular, the kind of young stars who inspire hope for long careers every time they’re on screen. He finds a funny, playful register he hasn’t been often allowed to play while she’s more magnetic with every film appearance. It’s a real collaboration between two actors who really understand the vision of their creator.
That vision gets a little less confident in the final act. There’s a bit with Charlie actually having a breakout hit that backfires on him that takes up too much screen time just as the movie is digging its nails into its thorny premise. How far would you go to “fake” happiness if it impacted the world around you? The truth is that no couple is always happy, and it’s unhealthy to obsess about having to be so. As “Wishful Thinking” approaches this complexity, it stumbles a bit, but that’s almost in keeping with its uncertain protagonists, two people fumbling their way through this impossible thing called love. Aren’t we all?
Less effective in truly maddening ways is Kevin Hamedani’s “The Saviors,” a movie that thinks it’s saying much more than it ultimately is. It’s a timely movie in its messaging of xenophobia and increased suspicion of our neighbors, but its filmmaking has a frustrating habit of derailing its best intentions. “The Saviors” is one of those films that does nothing once, repeating every idea to make sure it’s thoroughly pounded into your head, and it strands a good cast in a think piece of a film that prioritizes themes and twists over human connection.
Sean (Adam Scott) and Kim Harrison (Danielle Deadwyler) are a couple in crisis, an average pair headed for divorce. He sleeps in the basement, and the pair can barely talk to one another. To help with the mortgage, they rent out a guest house to a Middle Eastern brother and sister named Amir (film MVP Theo Rossi) and Jahan Razi (Nazanin Boniadi), who arrive in the middle of the night with a suspicious trunk.
From the beginning, Sean suspects something is up with the Razis. Of course, the blatant racism of his family (including Kate Berlant and Ron Perlman) doesn’t help, even as Sean pushes back against their stereotypes. But then things start to get weird. Sean sees bright lights in the middle of the night, intercepts blueprints coming in the mail, and finds what looks like bomb parts in the guest house. He eventually convinces Kim to join him on the suspicious side of the property, and the two begin to investigate their new tenants, getting closer as they do. Nothing fixes a broken relationship like xenophobia.
Of course, the Razis are not what they seem or what the Harrisons think they are: There’s no movie otherwise. Knowing that, “The Saviors” has a puzzle box aspect in that we, the audience, play with trying to figure out what the Harrisons are misreading about their admittedly suspicious neighbors. Did I mention that the President is coming to town soon for a funeral? Or that Sean keeps having visions of a bright light and a bombed-out future? It’s a lot.
And yet it ends up being frustratingly little, too. There’s just nothing to hold onto when one looks back on “The Saviors,” a movie that arguably would have been more interesting told from the other perspective, the POV of a refugee brother and sister dealing with their nosey neighbors. But that’s a more daring film than this one, a movie that ultimately made me angry not at the world but at a film that thinks it’s pushing buttons but doesn’t press nearly hard enough.
- SXSW 2026: The Peril at Pincer Point, American Dollhouse, Anima (March 15, 2026)
There’s a slogan that goes around the city that hosts the SXSW Film Festival that’s on T-shirts, posters, and bumper stickers: “Keep Austin Weird.” The three films in this dispatch are doing their part.
Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine’s “The Peril at Pincer Point” is aggressively weird, and that’s why it works. It commits to its oddity, revealing its creator as a playful visionary who seems equally inspired by “Eraserhead,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” if they were all directed by Andrew Bujalski. So many films at a festival like SXSW pretend to be quirky and strange but are actually quite predictable and routine; this is not the case with “Pincer Point,” a true oddity that also owes a debt to early British filmmaking. It’s truly not like anything else you’ll see this year.
Jack Redmayne plays Jim Baitte, a sound designer trying to make it big years after his breakthrough on the hit franchise “Frogopolis.” He gets a gig working with an eccentric horror director named P.W. Griffin, who speaks rapturously of the production of his latest project on a remote island, a place filled with legends of pirate captains and magical ladies. He tasks Jim with finding both a sound that will elevate the climax of his film and a woman he remembers from his time on the distant isle. When Jim gets there, he finds out that the damsel in distress is literally missing, but that’s only one of the many unusual things about his predicament. Another one? He can hear the crabs talking like surly pirates.
The irascible crabs are truly only one of several oddities in “Pincer Point,” a movie shot in fuzzy black and white by cinematographer Murray Zev Cohen in a style that gives it the tone of a dream (and I think there’s a legitimate reading of the film that it is actually all a vision of the night). As Jim wanders the eccentric isle, usually carrying his sound recording equipment with him, “Pincer Point” maintains a strong personality from beginning to end, becoming a project that feels, in part, like it’s about the power of moviemaking to weave with legends to become something new. After all, artists, even sound recorders, are the modern version of the pirate sitting around the bonfire telling tall tales of the sea. Kuhn and Stratton-Twine not only get that, they embrace it, making a movie that’s like nothing else at SXSW. In a time when too much looks and sounds the same, this a unique pirate story worth hearing.
Sadly, the other two films in this “weird” dispatch don’t connect their concepts with their execution with the same success. First, there’s John Valley’s “American Dollhouse,” a movie boasting an all-Austin production but that sometimes feels like it takes place in an alternate reality. What should be a taut thriller slides too often into an uncanny valley of behavior that’s not quite recognizably human, people going through the motions for a genre impact. Having said that, the commitment by the two leads is admirable, and there are a couple gnarly kills, but this is the kind of B-movie one expects to see at a more horror-inclusive genre fest than the broad canvas of SXSW. (People would be more forgiving of it at Fantastic Fest than here, for example.)
Hailley Lauren plays a woman who moves back to her childhood home after the death of her mother, getting lost in the memories that can feel trapped by a place from our youth. Her brother seems a bit worried about leaving his hard-drinking sister alone to face her demons, but he has his own life to live. And then the woman notices that the incredibly creepy neighbor (Kelsey Pribilski) is watching her through the window, insistent that she put up the Christmas lights that her mother did every other year. To say that she’s an obsessive neighbor would be an understatement, and she clearly (barely) hides a psychotic violent side. From here, “American Dollhouse” becomes an exercise in the inevitable. As our heroine brings people into her life like a possible boyfriend and old friend come to town, we know they’re merely fodder for the crazy lady next door, although Valley does have a bit of fun figuring out new ways to dispatch hapless visitors.
“American Dollhouse” just doesn’t do enough to distinguish it from the crowd. Back stories for both of the leads are hinted at but underdeveloped because Valley is having too much fun making people bleed. The leads commit fully but Valley the writer often doesn’t give them enough to hold onto, making them dolls in his own under-furnished house.
There’s a similar frustrating shapelessness to Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s “Anima,” another sci-fi fable about “what really matters to the human condition” but delivered with such consistently affectless posturing that it almost aggressively avoids emotional connection. It’s a movie of pregnant pauses and deep considerations masquerading as insight, and one that’s consistently sterile in its presentation. It’s almost as if Ivie sought to make as cold and calculated a film as possible about the often-overheated way death is considered in film. It’s something of an admirable effort that makes for a film that just too rarely feels true.
Sydney Chandler (recently in “Alien: Earth”) plays Beck, a young woman who gets a job in a near-future as a sort of hospice chauffeur. Paul (Takehiro Hira, great in “Rental Family”) is dying, but he’s going through a process that will create a sort of eternal A.I. version of himself for anyone who wants to call or even visit. Imagine if you could contact your deceased loved one again or even play with them on a digital beach. Ivie and co-writer Brev Moss do so little with this idea, making it more of an endpoint for Beck/Paul’s journey than exploring a world in which this was possible. Instead, they turn Beck and Paul’s trip across country for Paul to say goodbye to people he’s wronged through his life into an often-traditional end-of-life movie. Paul gets things off his chest like telling a friend that he slept with his wife while Beck sees her troubled relationship with her father reflected in this new one. Both characters feel like they’re at the whim of the plot, pushed into emotional spaces that the writing and even the performing haven’t earned.
I often come out of films at festivals frustrated but intrigued by what the creators will do next. “Anima” falls into that category. Ivie’s sterile color palette here drove me a little insane, but he clearly has vision that’s greater than a traditional indie dramedy filmmaker. He’s trying to do something here that’s not like the other stuff playing SXSW, and he deserves credit for that effort, even if the result comes up short.
