Sucker
2022 · 14m · Netherlands
Directed by Steve Oen
Genres: dark comedy, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, humorous
A state-of-the-art robot vacuum cleaner named Sucker meets his new owner Eve, instantly falls in love with her, and sets out to eliminate the boyfriend who stands between them.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A Roomba's unrequited obsession is exactly the kind of premise that makes you pause—it's stupid and brilliant at once, a genuinely subversive take on the love-triangle that nobody asked for but shouldn't work, and it does. This is the contrarian's dream: absurdist, unwilling to explain itself, and funnier because it commits to the bit with complete machine-logic sincerity.
While the conceit is undeniably clever, the film sits comfortably in the well-worn tradition of anthropomorphic-object comedy rather than interrogating it; the formal choices—framing, pacing, editing—are competent but don't push the genre or visual language into new territory. It's a well-constructed toy box, but it doesn't reshape the form.
The decision to anchor the entire narrative through Sucker's sensor-based POV—those stuttering scans, the compressed spatial logic—is what transforms a one-joke premise into something genuinely unsettling; that single formal choice makes the absurdity land with teeth instead of just punchlines.
Festivals
- Imagine Fantastic Film Festival 2022
- SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival 2023
- Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia 2023
- Los Angeles Shorts International Film Festival 2023
- Love Your Shorts Film Festival 2023, Best Opening Night
- Dutch Directors Guild Awards 2022