Nominated
2020 · 10m · USA
Directed by John de Menil
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, melancholic
An Emmy-nominated actor is forced to Lyft his way to the ceremony and gets dragged into his driver's domestic meltdown en route. The supposed gulf between celebrity glamour and civilian misery narrows to the width of a Camry's backseat.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Hollywood self-mythology punctured by gig-economy reality — a juxtaposition I would normally call obvious, except de Menil refuses the easy beats. Wittrock gamely lets his vanity get bruised, and that's worth the ticket.
Awards-night anxiety relocated to a rideshare hostage situation — Ostlund class-collision in a Lyft Pool is a sharp premise; Finn Wittrock as the trapped celebrity is a real hook.
Awards-night anxiety relocated to a Lyft emotional hostage situation — the class collision compressed to a backseat is structurally tight. Finn Wittrock in a tux against a domestic squabble has actual comic geometry.