It's Not What You Know
2016 · 10m · United States
Directed by Aaron Abrams
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
A man arrives at a dilapidated Los Angeles house party with a plan and a mysterious lunchbox, then runs into someone from his past.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The mysterious lunchbox setup promises subversion, but the film plays it mostly straight—a dark comedy that lands somewhere between indie dramedy and revenge thriller without fully committing to the weirdness the premise deserves.
Abrams demonstrates control over tone and pacing, threading dark comedy through character-driven drama with the kind of structural awareness you'd expect from festival circuit work, though the execution doesn't quite transcend its modest ambitions.
What elevates this beyond its familiar LA-party-gone-wrong skeleton is the decision to ground the entire film in the awkward, loaded silence between these two people—the past isn't explained, just felt, and that restraint transforms a 10-minute setup into something genuinely uncomfortable and real.
Reviews
The house felt a lot like LA itself; seductive but broken. The duo bring forward the film's dark and comedic energy while trying to navigate the embarrassing reality of what they've become.