Get-together-ers
2025 · 10m · USA
Directed by Michael Rees
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
Phil shows up to a holiday gift exchange jittery about his unwrapped present, and then the wrong person opens it. Worse, Phil's mystery box keeps generating a custom item for every guest — with strange, possibly metaphysical effects on the recipient.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A holiday gift-exchange comedy that quietly slides into metaphysics — and stays committed when most shorts would chicken out. Rees keeps assembling cast lists that make me suspicious in the best way.
Tim Robinson social-trap discomfort wired to a Twilight Zone box — Rees keeps the metaphysics polite enough not to break the holiday-party tone. A clean formal trick.
A holiday gift exchange where a single box generates a custom item for each guest with metaphysical side effects — that's a wonderful escalating engine for a comedy. Rees has the deadpan idiosyncrasy to make the tilt land.