I bought tickets to see seven films at Sundance this year. The first three were premieres, all on Friday, January 29th. Here are my thoughts on what I’ve seen so far!
Cryptozoo (2021 | USA | 95 minutes | Dash Shaw)
Graphic novelist Dash Shaw follows up his hilarious, psychedelic, absurdist, and utterly unique animated feature debut, My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea, with an even wilder and more fantastical sophomore effort. Zoologist Lauren Gray (Lake Bell) has been tasked with bringing in a Baku – a mythical Japanese beast which is known to eat dreams – to join the menagerie in a soon-to-open “cryptozoo”, a sanctuary for cryptids and mythical creatures from all over the globe. But things don’t go according to plan, and in true Dash Shaw style, chaos and destruction quickly ensue. A government conspiracy is exposed, 1960s counterculture comes into play, and eventually the very concepts of humane zookeeping and incremental social change are interrogated.
Like with his first film, Shaw and his team, including animation director Jane Samborski, use an extraordinary variety of mixed media to fill out the textures of this hand-drawn animation, utilizing what looks like watercolors, oil paints, crayon, colored pencil, printed textures, digital patterns and more. There’s hand-animated graphic sex and nudity along with some gory violence, amping up the “adult” quotient of this one. Some online sources (although not the Sundance description page) list Jason Schwartzman in this film’s cast, but if he is, it’s a small or voice-modulated and uncredited role – but the more clearly credited and recognizable voice cast is fantastic, anyway, with Lake Bell’s strong lead supported by Grace Zabriskie, Michael Cera, Zoe Kazan, Alex Karpovsky, and more. I didn’t personally find this film’s story to be as deeply moving as I did High School Sinking – more of a fascinating curiosity with truly remarkable animation, as opposed to a vehicle for emotional catharsis – but it’s more than worth the time to watch.
How It Ends (2020 | USA | 82 minutes | Daryl Wein & Zoe Lister-Jones)
Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein have taken the lemons of coronavirus lockdown and turned them into the lemonade of an apocalypse film. Using the deserted streets of Los Angeles and a structure seemingly dictated by covid gathering-size restrictions (two people wandering the city encountering 1-2 others at a time, almost always outdoors), this husband-and-wife filmmaking duo have created a moving story about self-acceptance and reconciliation at the end of the world. A comet is about to obliterate the Earth, and on everyone’s last day alive, Liza (played by Lister-Jones) and her “metaphysical” but, for today, fully embodied younger self (a spirited Cailee Spaeny), with their car freshly stolen, go on a long walk through their city to say goodbyes and make amends before showing up to one last blowout party.
Part of the pleasure of this film is discovering who’s going to pop up next, so I won’t spoil the supporting cast but will just note that favorites from New Girl, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Human Giant, SNL and much more make really enjoyable appearances.
How It Ends melds whimsy and silly humor – and some of my favorite comical scene exits of recent memory – with the heaviness of finally facing and dealing with past traumas and regrets. In that way it’s a tonal cousin to last year’s metaphysical comedy hit, Palm Springs. I laughed out loud regularly and also cried buckets. While getting a glimpse at what the homes of some of my favorite comic actors look like!
On the Count of Three (2020 | USA | 84 minutes | Jerrod Carmichael)
Somehow the second film of the fest that jumps off from the premise of “we’re dying at the end of this day, so screw it, let’s make the most of it, go out swinging and righting some wrongs along the way” – this one, from director Jerrod Carmichael and co-starring himself alongside Christopher Abbott (throwing off big Safdie Brothers vibes here), is much darker in tone. Rather than a worldwide apocalypse, things are only ending here for our two suicidal leads, who agree on a pact to go out together. Of course they have loose ends to tie up first, and much like the last film, this leads to a series of encounters throughout the day with interesting characters in separate locations which we make our way through in the style of a quest.
While I’d describe the tone of How It Ends as “optimistic comedy with a liberal sprinkling of heavy stuff”, I’d switch this one’s balance around to “dark, bleak, and heavy, with a solid sprinkling of laughs mixed in”.
For those dealing with mental health struggles, a warning: this film is beautiful and explores its issues in a real and true way, and is a really lovely depiction of a deep male friendship, but I think it’d be a stretch to call it life-affirming. It’s raw and un-sugar-coated enough that it might not even be a particularly safe watch while in certain headspaces, to be honest. It was my biggest cry of the day by far.
All 3 of these films have their Sundance encore screenings today (Sunday, January 31st). As of this posting, Cryptozoo and How It Ends both have tickets available; On the Count of Three is currently sold out, but there’s always a chance tickets may open up again before showtime, so it might be worth checking back!
Header image: Cryptozoo (Johnny Dell’Angelo, courtesy of Sundance Institute)