Vanilla
2023 · 17m
Directed by Chase Pearson
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, tender
A great date reaches the point of going home together, and Helen is open about the immersive role-play she wants. Clark is game, but discovers that playing the role she needs is harder, and stranger, than he expected.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone's expecting a quirky sex-comedy, and instead Pearson makes the vulnerability actually matter—turning the premise inside out so Clark's discomfort becomes the real subject, not the punchline. It's subversive without trying to be edgy, which is way harder.
The film's restraint in the third act—what it refuses to show, how it lets silence and small gestures carry the emotional weight—places it in thoughtful company with contemporary indie romance that understands the grammar of intimacy as formal choice.
That moment when Clark's performance breaks and we see him genuinely trying to meet Helen where she actually is: Pearson holds on his face just long enough that the whole film pivots from comedy to something achingly human, and it's the only cut that needed to happen.