Unscripted
2020 · 10m · USA
Directed by Sophia Sabella, Pablo Feldman
Genres: comedy, experimental
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
An artist couple's attempt to write a script unravels into a vicious argument over creative control that escalates into physical chaos. The line between art and grudge collapses in real time.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Couples therapy as cinema verite, every collaborator's worst-case scenario weaponized for laughs. I'll always cheer when art-making eats itself on screen.
The making-of becomes the movie, the fight is the script — that's a clean conceptual frame and Sabella and Feldman directing and starring as the couple gives it the right teeth. Cassavetes-by-way-of-mumblecore-prank is the territory.
The making-of becomes the movie — the fight is the script, the script is the fight. That premise mirror is mumblecore meta-prank in the right register, and putting their paintings in danger by the end is a real Cassavetes-domestic escalation.