Jess
2018 · 10m
Directed by Daniel Hurwitz
Genres: comedy, fantasy, romance
Jess becomes an overnight superhero, and her boyfriend Mike can't handle her newfound success — or her superhuman eyesight.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A superhero origin story that inverts the power fantasy into relationship sabotage—bold enough to make the superpowers almost beside the point, which is exactly the kind of genre subversion that shouldn't work but does.
The film executes a familiar romantic-comedy premise with formal precision, though it operates squarely within convention rather than interrogating or extending it; competent but not particularly urgent.
The eyesight gimmick could've been gimmicky, but the decision to make it intimate rather than spectacular—focusing on what Jess *sees* rather than what she *does*—transforms a rom-com setup into something genuinely tender and strange.
Reviews
This is the story of Jess' boyfriend, Mike, who can't handle his girlfriend's newfound success of becoming an overnight superhero.
Being understandably nervous the night before her laser eye surgery, she asked him if she would still date him if she went blind. Her anxiety made Daniel wonder: "What if the laser eye surgery somehow gave her superhuman eyesight? Would she still date me?"