Hannahs
2021 · 10m · USA
Directed by India Donaldson
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, tense
A woman comes home to find a stranger already inside her apartment, and the encounter that follows refuses to settle into either menace or comedy.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
From the director who'd later make Good One — early Donaldson and you can already feel the restraint. A home invasion that refuses to act like one is exactly the kind of genre-side-step I'll always pick up.
Donaldson sustains two-hander tonal ambiguity entirely on Zimmer and Palughi's chemistry — early Joanna Hogg adjacency with the Eliza Hittman shorts texture. Neither thriller nor sketch is the formal achievement.
Donaldson sustaining two-hander tonal ambiguity — neither thriller nor sketch — entirely on Amy Zimmer and Brenna Palughi's chemistry, with both characters named Hannah is a sneaky-clever device. The 'offering to cook eggs' detail is exactly the right unsettling specificity.
Reviews
a darkly funny, increasingly uncomfortable character study led by two wonderfully nuanced performances