Unpresidented
2017 · 10m · USA
Directed by Jason Giampietro
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, melancholic
Keith bet a hundred bucks against a subway musician on Trump losing, lost the bet, lost his friends, and now wants to defend his side of the story. Post-election NYC malaise distilled into one petty grievance.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A 2017 political-friendship breakup told through a lost subway bet — that's the right scale for that disaster. Giampietro keeps it small, which makes it land.
Shrinking the 2016 political-friendship implosion to one absurd subway bet is somehow more accurate than any broader treatment, and Giampietro's small-NYC-grievance register feels exactly right for the material. Frownland with a slightly bigger social circle.
Shrinking the 2016 political-friendship implosion to one $100 subway-saxophone bet is a precise comedic miniature — the smaller and pettier the better for this kind of post-election malaise. Keith Poulson on his own grievance side is correctly cast.