Open Mic
2026 · 12m
Directed by Robert DiRoberto
Genres: comedy, drama, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, darkly comic
An aspiring comedian with a fraying family life bombs toward one make-or-break open mic set. Trapped in a time loop inside the club, he must finally land the performance that could change everything.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Time loop + bombing comedian + family collapse is the kind of premise that should be corny, but DiRoberto seems to be using the genre trap as a Trojan horse for something meaner—watching someone fracture the same way twelve times before the joke lands feels subversive in a way most feel-good comedies would never dare.
The collision of Groundhog Day mechanics with kitchen-sink family drama positions itself deliberately between traditions, and the formal question of how repetition functions as both comedic structure and emotional brutalism will likely split rooms in the best way—that's the kind of film that generates real critical conversation.
The decision to locate the entire film inside a single room and trap the narrative momentum in cyclical performance attempts is economical and clever, but the real lift here seems to be in whatever DiRoberto chose to do with the family material in the margins—how that bleeds into or complicates the comedy loop itself.