Bowling 4 Eva
2023 · 14m · USA
Directed by Aelfie Oudghiri
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, dark comedy
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic, provocative
A troubled teen girl trolls men online and bowls with her grandfather while becoming progressively more medicated, her depression rendered with satirical bite and animated interludes. A portrait of pharmaceutical girlhood that refuses to be sympathetic on conventional terms.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Depression + pharmaceuticals + trolling men online + bowling with grandpa + animated interludes. This film is doing too much in the best possible way.
That premise — Ghost World's misanthropy crossed with a talking-bowling-ball pharmaceutical satire — is the kind of swing I want NoBudge to keep taking. Aelfie Oudghiri sounds like she's refusing the sympathetic-girl template entirely, which is brave.
The animated talking-bowling-ball cutaways inside a live-action portrait of medicated girlhood is exactly the kind of formal mood-swing I want from a NoBudge pick. Olivia Liang carrying a deliberately unsympathetic teen sounds bracing.