Fast and Loose
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by Whitmer Thomas
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, melancholic
A filmmaker (playing himself) drifts around L.A. juggling two unsatisfying relationships while doling out unsolicited advice to a friend trying to glow up for romance. A date scene cracks his confident exterior open.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Self-aware navel-gazing usually makes me want to throw something, but Thomas projects his garbage onto everyone around him with enough self-loathing to be honest about it. Rare.
Thomas plays a version of himself drifting around LA being the asshole — and the film knows it before he does. Joe Swanberg adjacency with the self-implicating clarity of Thomas's Blue Line.
The narrator is the asshole and the film knows it before he does — Whitmer Thomas playing 'Whit' drifting through L.A. doling out advice that exposes his own hangups is exactly the right level of self-implication. Anna Seregina and Clay Tatum in the ensemble is strong.
Reviews
Both comedic and revealing — incisive, willing to cut deep beyond surface-level comedy.