Fenestra
2020 · 4m
Directed by Jason Sheedy
Genres: dark comedy, drama, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
As alien ships appear around the world, a heartbroken woman confronts a cheating boyfriend who expects to be taken back amid the chaos.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most people would play the alien invasion straight or lean hard into the romance—Sheedy does neither, instead using first contact as permission to interrogate why we'd even *want* to be taken back by someone who doesn't deserve us. It's subversive exactly when it needs to be: absurdist enough to feel dangerous, grounded enough to sting.
The film positions itself squarely in the tradition of genre-as-relationship-crucible, but what's rigorous here is the restraint—the editing trusts the audience to hold both apocalypse and intimacy without letting either swallow the frame. It's a precise formal argument wrapped in dark comedy.
The decision to keep the aliens offscreen and distant, letting them function purely as atmospheric pressure while the actual conflict stays between two people in a room, is what transforms a high-concept premise into something that breathes—it's economical filmmaking that knows exactly what it doesn't need to show you.
Reviews
The review frames the film as a lean domestic drama set against an alien arrival, noting the fed-up performance of the woman and the boyfriend who fails to grasp her rejection.