Blacklisted
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by Jo Steinhart
Tones: darkly comic, tender
Two best friends at a liberal arts college spiral through a night of unrequited crushes, cocaine, and bad decisions, eventually uncovering what the titular blacklist actually means.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Queer college films are usually either trauma sermons or sanitized rom-coms. Steinhart picks the third door: messy, deadpan, faintly nauseated.
Jo Steinhart lets queer college women be petty and chemically impaired without punishing them for it — Shiva Baby's social heat, Appropriate Behavior's nerve. The blacklist payoff lands.
Queer college comedy that lets its characters be petty and chemically impaired without punishing them for it — Jo Steinhart's sharp-edged register on the page summary suggests the writing earns the texture.
Reviews
A sharp-edged comedy about queer women navigating volatile college relationships, with moments of effervescent flash and real connection underneath it all.