“Sharp Stick”
Lena Dunham’s work is an acquired taste but her often provocative, sex-positive approach to intimate vulnerability is humorous and honest in an experiential manner that feels increasingly elusive on the big screen compared to streaming services. Her first theatrical feature since “Tiny Furniture,” “Sharp Stick” follows a 26-year-old woman, Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), who is so dedicated to losing her virginity that she sleeps with a friend’s father (Jon Bernthal). Dunham has a particular talent for writing bonehead male characters (aiding Adam Driver in earning his star card) and Bernthal is an excellent casting choice who should pair well with her millennial voice.
“Something In The Dirt”
After witnessing something terrifyingly impossible inside one of their LA apartments, new neighbors, John and Levi (co-stars/directors/editors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, who were snagged up by Marvel to helm some “Moon Knight” episodes) start seeing dollar signs in their eyes. A twisted, insular sci-fi tale which sounds a bit reminiscent of French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux’s oddball work, “Something in the Dirt” is a buddy movie showcasing Benson and Moorhead’s DIY talents, “two isolated and unfulfilled individuals [spuring] each other towards wormholes and away from reality.”
“Watcher”
When Julia (Maika Monroe) relocates to Romania with her husband, she finds herself frequently people-watching to pass the time. Alone and with little to do in an unfamiliar country/apartment, Julia’s uneasiness intensifies after being followed home from the theater one night, perhaps by a mysterious neighbor she’s sensed looking back at her. Learning that a serial killer dubbed “The Spider” is stalking the city, Julia’s isolation turns to total torment. A tense unsettling thriller a la Fincher or Hitchcock, director Chloe Okuno’s “Watcher” paints a city in peril, shadows and self-doubt a constant discomfort.
“When You Finish Saving the World“
High school student Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard) plays folk-rock songs for his online followers from the comfort of his bedroom. His mother, Evelyn (Julianne Moore), is completely mystified by this concept. Eager to impress his radicalized classmate by injecting more politics into his music, Evelyn bonds with a teenager named Kyle at the facility she works at, filling a hole her son’s gone missing from. The directorial debut of Jesse Eisenberg, “When You Finish Saving the World” could be the actor’s spin on a film like “The Squid and the Whale”—observing and exploring how cultural gaps can separate familial generations.
“You Won’t Be Alone”
Australian-Macedonian writer/director Goran Stolevski’s “You Won’t Be Alone” should be on your watchlist if you count yourself a Robert Eggers admirer. Set in a reclusive mountain village circa the 19th century, a young witch inadvertently kills a woman and assumes her physical form, “igniting a deep-seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others.” A bloody, fable-esque meditation that brews together the sensory and the supernatural, Stolevski’s debut film is a strikingly poetic work on the contours of spiritual loneliness, with the witch played by a number of actors, including Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, and Sara Klimoska.