The File
2020 · 8m · USA
Directed by Indigo Bates
Genres: dark comedy, LGBTQ+
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic
When the therapist who has guided Paul and Scott through 20 years of their relationship suddenly dies, one partner sees a blank slate while the other becomes obsessed with breaking into the therapist's house to retrieve their file. What follows is a heightened, absurdist meditation on disclosure, closure, and the hilarious lines between them.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most people would make this a maudlin grief story, but Bates flips the emotional script entirely—turning a dead therapist into a literal plot object and mining genuine absurdist comedy from the desperation of two people who've outsourced their intimacy to someone's filing cabinet. It's exactly the kind of premise that makes you laugh and immediately regret laughing, which means it's working.
The film's formal control—how it sustains the tonal balance between dark comedy and genuine loss without collapsing into either melodrama or farce—places it in conversation with a specific lineage of British absurdist cinema, and Bates understands that the restraint in the editing is what allows the premise's inherent contradiction to resonate.
The breakthrough here is the decision to shoot the break-in with the same domestic intimacy and lighting as the therapy scenes themselves, which transforms what could've been a genre gag into something quietly devastating about how couples are never really present in the same room, even when they're alone together.
Reviews
Takes a hilarious approach to the question of what one would do to get 20 years of their life back.
Captured in a heightened reality, almost feeling surreal or absurdist at times, but grounded by cathartic relatability.
Festivals
- Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood 2020
- Hollywood New Directors 2021, Honorable Mention