Coda
2019 · 10m · USA
Directed by Zoe Jarman
Genres: comedy, dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, melancholic
Wendy organizes her best friend's bachelorette cabin weekend and watches herself get systematically demoted to the margins by the same friend she's celebrating. By bedtime she has no bed.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Female friendship usually gets the soft-focus treatment. Jarman lets it run sour and watches it curdle in real time — that's a much more interesting register.
Codependent humiliation served wedding-gift style — Jarman's deadpan precision lets every slight land like a place card. Bachelorette without the slapstick, exactly.
The slow-motion social humiliation of codependency staged with deadpan precision — every fresh slight delivered like a wedding gift. Jarman writing/directing/starring in her own demotion is the kind of total-control bet that pays off when the actor trusts the cringe.
Reviews
The deadpan Jarman is hilarious as the mistreated Wendy (as is Stephanie Allynne as the cruel Kristin), and the film keeps doubling down on its nightmarish slights, registering as a sharp-witted exploration of codependency.