At SXSW, Rom-Coms Got A Twisted Genre Makeover

The traditional rom-com has been on life support for the last decade, and that’s a shame — but the concept of boy-meets-girl lives on, albeit with a genre makeover, at this year’s SXSW. The festival’s buzziest films each flip age-old tales of romance on their head, dropping love stories into horror-infused gore, trippy science fiction, and offbeat fantasy. It’s the kind of genre-mashing that truly never gets old: even when the story is flawed, it still offers us plenty to fall in love with.

The most surprising hits of SXSW each took the concept of love and remixed it in their own perverse ways, so here are the films that honored that premise — for better or worse.

Wishful Thinking

When Julia (Maya Hawke) and Charlie (Lewis Pullman) first met, it was something like kismet. The world seemed to reform around their love — but lately, all they seem to do is fight. As they learn from twin energy-worker sisters (both played by Kate Berlant), they’re twin flames locked in a repetitive cycle. But there’s still hope: they manifested their relationship at the outset, and they can manifest its survival. In fact, they can probably manifest anything, and the pair waste little time proving that truth. A well-timed sext saves Julia’s job at a game-designing firm from going under; a blindsiding conversation about exes causes the stock of a cryptocurrency to plummet. It’s the kind of screwball ridiculousness that has become a dying breed, but Graham Parkes’ Wishful Thinking wills it gleefully back to life.

It’s rare to find a film that’s equal parts sci-fi and romance, but Wishful Thinking splits the difference with a dash of neurotic humor and bittersweet drama. Parkes, loosely adapting the concept of The Secret (where you attract both what you want and what you fear), relishes the gonzo premise of a relationship nearing implosion. Being in love feels a lot like being invincible, or like hurtling towards one’s own destruction, and Wishful Thinking does not embrace that parallel delicately. Julia and Charlie’s steamy second act is great initially, but it doesn’t last — and as their rapport curdles into a familiar tempest of misunderstandings and desperate gestures of romance, the world around them threatens to shatter, thanks to an earthquake ominously named the “Big One.” It can’t claim to be subtle, but with Pullman and Hawke so deftly navigating both heart-wrenching devastation and manic humor, that’s rightly the last thing on this film’s mind.

Wishful Thinking premiered on March 12 at SXSW. It does not yet have a distributor or general release date.

Obsession

There’s nothing worse than arriving late to a film that’s already been lauded as an unforgettable sensation... especially when that love doesn’t fully connect. Sadly, that’s the story with Curry Barker’s Obsession. Its initial buzz has been glowing; on the ground at Austin, it was introduced as “the best film you’ll see this year.” And what Barker does have to offer is frequently compelling — it just feels like half of a much more arresting tale. Obsession’s premise is just twisted enough to bring the horror genre something new and demented, but it relishes the tease far more than it does the execution. There’s something of The Monkey in its “careful what you wish for” conceit, following the soft-spoken, lovelorn Bear (Michael Johnston) as he grapples with confessing his love to his close friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Barker cut his teeth in sketch comedy, amassing a loyal fanbase through his YouTube channel That’s A Bad Idea, and that dry, cringe-inducing humor gives Obsession much of its personality. The director knows how to make us squirm, whether it’s for Bear’s consistent fumbling or because of the shocks of self-harm and goopy gore that follow.

It’s the former that paves the way for the latter. Bear fails to tell Nikki how he really, truly feels — but there’s a sense that she’s actively dreading his confession anyway. So he settles for a desperate move and makes a wish on a One Wish Willow, a gag gift he picks up from a local woo-woo store. And bafflingly, it works: Nikki does fall head-over-heels in a matter of moments, claiming to love Bear more than anyone else in the world. Navarrette is a spine-chilling force of nature, flipping on a dime from lovey-dovey tenderness into total demonia. If only Barker’s script backed that gonzo performance with more substance. It gestures to the ickiness inherent in Bear’s wish, hints at the possession that made this consent-twisting relationship possible, but never follows through on the bloody breadcrumbs it casts off. As a series of gross-out gags, Obsession is a worthwhile debut — but after the adrenaline wore off, I found myself wishing for more substance.

Obsession premiered on March 14 at SXSW. It opens in theaters on May 15.

The Fox

“Can you just be normal?” an incredulous Nick (Jai Courtney) asks his fiancée, Kori (Emily Browning), one morning. It’s a fair question, as Kori has seemingly changed overnight, traipsing around their shared home stark naked and covered in dirt. But Nick is also totally to blame: when he learns that Kori has been cheating on him with her skeevy boss, Derek (Damon Herriman), he pushes her down a magic hole that will supposedly transform her into the partner of his dreams. All this was insisted upon by a wily fox (voiced by Olivia Colman), because animals talk in this parallel world. Crucially, though, they’re also supremely skilled at getting exactly what they want from humans, a concept that The Fox pushes into an absurdly funny, unforgettable fairytale farce.

Written and directed by Dario Russo, The Fox might be easiest described in comparison to other, equally kooky films. There are glimmers of Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Taika Waititi in this offbeat marital satire, not only because it commits so seriously to its twee magical realism (complete with fun animal puppets and a few stop-motion effects), but because of the humor that swings wildly from bone-dry, straight-faced wit into scenery-chewing tomfoolery. The Boys’ Claudia Doumit is the best example of the latter; as Derek’s aggrieved, flamboyant wife, she supplies The Fox with complex dimension and wicked humor. But Russo isn’t afraid to get serious, either: It’s a cautionary tale plucked straight out of Aesop’s Fables, but with a modern twist that proves how much these stories still have to teach us.

The Fox premiered at SXSW on March 15. It does not yet have a U.S. distributor or general release date.