Groundhog Year
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Varya Rootwood
Genres: comedy, drama, experimental
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, darkly comic
A woman tries to extract meaning from her indistinguishable days — gardening, coffee, books — but keeps ending up sprawled upside-down in the dirt, soaked by a hose, narrating her own slapstick paralysis.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Films about meaninglessness usually try to be Important; this one just keeps falling over in the garden. Smart enough to know that physical comedy is the most honest existentialism.
Rootwood treats the body as the punchline — physical comedy as existential commentary, dance-trained performer in domestic frames. Maya Deren plus Buster Keaton plus Miranda July is a lineage I take seriously.
Treating the body as the punchline — physical comedy as existential commentary, dance-trained Rootwood ending up upside-down in the dirt and soaked by a hose while narrating her own paralysis — is a real structural choice. Page is Cloudflare-blocked but the Buster Keaton / Maya Deren reach is unusual.
Reviews
striking, darkly funny compositions and sarcastic monologue ... a knack for capturing expressive bodies in ordinary spaces