Bev
2017 · 26m · USA
Directed by Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, theatrical
A group therapy session conceals a genuinely doozy of a family history, which the co-directors spin into deadpan farce that keeps escalating its own darkness with every revelation. A magic trick in tone — very unfunny subject matter rendered as brilliant comedy.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Joe Pera and John Early in a therapy farce about things that are not funny at all. The cast list is its own argument. The film keeps going darker and the register never wavers.
Samy Burch (later of May December) doing Solondz-via-Lanthimos in a group therapy chamber, with Joe Pera and John Early — the deadpan-escalation magic trick is exactly her wheelhouse and the cast is a small miracle.
Deadpan group-therapy farce with Brennan Lee Mulligan, Joe Pera, and John Early in the same room? Samy Burch's writing already proves out on bigger features — this earlier deadpan-control exercise sounds like a small triumph.