New Love

The scouts

A worm falling in love is exactly the kind of premise that *should* feel gimmicky, but McKown resists the easy whimsy—there's something genuinely unsettling about watching something so fragile navigate desire, which is the only move that makes it work.

The formal restraint here recalls a lineage of lyrical animation—something between Chbosky and Hertzfeldt—where the two-minute form becomes an argument about how much emotional specificity you can compress into gesture and sound design.

Farmiga's final mix is the whole film: the way ambient space and creature vocality collapse into something that feels like breathing, making you forget you're watching animation and remember you're watching heartbreak.