I Love My Friends
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by River L. Ramirez
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, melancholic
A young woman's love for her friends overflows into physicality and confession at a level that everyone around her clearly cannot match. A short, sharp diagnosis of the loneliness inside unreciprocated intensity.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Patti Harrison and Ana Fabrega in the same lineup, in 2018, before the industry caught up — this is the kind of receipt I want the vault to keep. The film knows that loving people too loudly is a form of horror.
Ramirez punctuates emotional confession with face-slamming set to electronic music — weaponizing comedy-video grammar against itself, with Patti Harrison and Ana Fabrega for support. The form is the unreciprocated intensity.
Face-slamming-set-to-electronic-music as the comedy-video grammar weaponized against itself is a real structural choice, and the Ramirez/Harrison/Fabrega/Zimmer alt-comedy lineup is stacked. Unreciprocated-intensity loneliness is hard to land without veering into pity.
Reviews
Examines the clichés of describing and feeling love, and the angst felt when it's not returned.