Assets & Liabilities (2026 |  USA |  62 min. |  Zach Weintraub)

I guess this is growing up? Set in Tacoma, Zach Weintraub’s tightly scripted feature finds his fictional counterpart “Zach” settling into the realities of adulthood: making uncomfortable calls to his property management company to weasel his way into having his starter house sold out from under his renters, spending days jockeying his tech job from home, taking care of his young daughter, noticing gray hairs and fine lines around his eyes. It happens to the best of us, gradually and then all at once.

Even more unsettling than the stomach-turning realities of potty training your kid? Giving a ‘what’s up’ nod to some skateboarders when you’re spending time with her at the park and getting nothing back in response. The impending invisibility of aging hits hard; so when Zach’s wife and daughter go out of town for the weekend he’s determined to claw back his youthful vibes, if only for a few fleeting days of solo time (literally). Alongside calling off work, unleashing his better self, his to-do list prioritizes “masturbate repeatedly (get weird/kinky with it)”. With himself in the starring role, Weintraub is nothing if not willing to engage in some self-humiliation in service of brutal honesty. Aside from jerking it to domination instruction videos, he’s also willing to don a “cool guy” disguise of a fake mustache, bucket hat, and skater clothes rescued from a long-forgotten donation bin.

Rather than allow his film to languish as typical mumblecore (not that there’s anything wrong with that) identity crisis, Weintraub uses a series of off-kilter camerawork to set a mood of dissociation right from the start. When he meets a twenty-something novice at the skatepark, they initially hit it off until extreme coincidence sends the film careening from psychological thriller into stoner comedy surreal horror. All the more impressive that he escalates the discomforts so rapidly, not that I could’ve taken much more than that of the liberalized stomach-turning turmoil of burgeoning responsibilities and the painful rituals of making a break from the past.