Dry Days
2018 · 12m · USA
Directed by William Welles
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, provocative
Alex tells her upscale coworkers she's going on a beach vacation, then descends into New York City in search of the vile — a pitch-black comedy or tragedy depending on your squeamishness, about perversity and compulsion.
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She tells her coworkers she's going to the beach. She descends into NYC looking for the vile. The film never asks why. Neither should you.
A film about descent into vile compulsion that refuses to pathologize its protagonist — Welles letting Rachel McKeon commit without explanation is rare, and the Trash Humpers comparison is the right ballpark for the lack of editorial distance.
Rachel McKeon committing to compulsion-toward-degradation that the film refuses to explain or pathologize — that refusal is the craft choice. Pitch-black, willing to lose you.