'Significant Other' doesn't satisfy
Hmm, perhaps a minimalist thriller about a couple exploring the Pacific Northwest woods where an alien just arrived on Earth and was quite unfriendly to a deer only has a few directions to go.
Indeed, the issue with this merely 78-minute, overextended short film—which is far leaner than you might expect for a movie that, cough, shares a name with a Limp Bizkit album—is that it’s simply not enough in nearly every category. Harry (Jake Lacy of “Obvious Child” and “The White Lotus”) and Ruth (Maika Monroe of “It Follows” and “The Guest”) head into a beautiful, isolated trail, him confident that nothing bad can happen and her hesitant even though she’s very experienced at water sports. He proposes; even after six years, she’s not ready and probably never will be. Then things get even more awkward.
If you‘ve ever seen a movie about aliens or a couple unsure of its future, “Significant Other” will add nothing to your life. It reminded me of how “The Loneliest Planet” hinges brilliantly on one relationship-changing moment mid-travel and how “The One I Love” explores complex ideas about identity and compatibility while combining sci-fi and romance. “Significant Other” seems to forget to fill in the part where the depth is supposed to go, leaning too strongly on so-so effects, predictable casting and basic notions of how a person’s upbringing can influence their adulthood.
Occasionally an impressive shot makes you think, “This has been storyboarded well.” More often you regret this inoffensive yet wholly unremarkable trudge.
C
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