SXSW Movie Competition 2025: The Baltimorons, For Worse, Magic Hour | Festivals & Awards

Filmmakers usually underestimate how essential it may be to really feel their love for his or her characters. When a author/director sees the individuals on-screen as three-dimensional individuals with hopes, goals, and fears as an alternative of mere cogs within the machine of their plot, it’s a lot simpler for us to do the identical. For instance, Richard Linklater loves Jesse and Celine, the leads in his “Earlier than” trilogy. He roots for them. He desires to hang around with them as a lot as we do. And that form of love for an sudden pairing comes by means of in Jay Duplass’ great “The Baltimorons,” a young walk-and-talk that unfolds over the course of 1 unpredictable vacation night. It’s a personality research constructed round one of many core tenets of improvisational comedy: “Sure, And.” The concept is that you just don’t cease the circulate of comedy that’s being written on a stage, however it may additionally translate to not stopping your self from residing. We might all “Sure, And” extra of life.

The story of “The Baltimorons” emerged from the true story of its lead, the spectacularly charming Michael Strassner, who revealed in Q&As that the incident that opens the movie, by which he makes an attempt suicide after an improv present gone flawed, was pulled from his personal life. Lower to 6 months later and Strassner’s Cliff appears to have gotten all the pieces so as. He’s been sober for the reason that try, and he now not does comedy, which makes his fiancé joyful. She worries quite a bit in regards to the strain of the comedy scene and the free-flowing alcohol, encouraging him to not do the present on Christmas Eve that his buddies need him to do. As an alternative, they’ll hang around along with her household, eat candy potatoes, and possibly watch a recreation or two.

Cliff’s vacation plans go awry when he journeys on his manner into the house of his in-laws-to-be and cracks a tooth. He will get a maintain of the one dentist prepared to come back into the workplace on Christmas Eve, a divorcee named Didi (the unbelievable Liz Larsen), who simply discovered that her ex has married his much-younger girlfriend. Didi is at a stage of life the place she feels unseen by the world, and that sense of loneliness is about to be exacerbated by spending the vacation alone. Cliff overhears a dialog about Didi’s state of affairs, and his large coronary heart seeks to make Didi’s vacation somewhat higher, resulting in a collection of completely unpredictable occasions, virtually like an improv present that would go in any path.

Duplass and Strassner have crafted a gorgeous movie that one way or the other feels spontaneous, a window right into a relationship that wouldn’t have occurred with out a missed step. I’m huge on what Paul Auster referred to as “The Music of Probability,” a way that life can be completely totally different if not for one random occasion, and “The Baltimorons” hums with that power. But it surely’s not simply twists of destiny that make Cliff and Didi so memorable: It’s their bone-deep decency. These are good individuals making an attempt to make it by means of a troublesome world, and so they see one another in a manner that nobody else has in years. It’s an extremely humorous, genuinely transferring character research that’s not explicitly “about” something however these two beautiful individuals. But, I walked away from it telling myself to “Sure, and” extra of my very own life. It’s a lot simpler to “No, However.” It’s definitely worth the effort not solely to see different individuals in our lives however to know that we management how we improvise by means of this existence. Say sure extra.

As a lot as “The Baltimorons” unfolds with natural hilarity, Amy Landecker’s directorial debut, “For Worse,” struggles to keep away from sitcom trappings. When Landecker trusts herself utterly as a author, director, and performer, her comedy works. There are unforced conversations on this movie, particularly one close to the top on a bench outdoors an Pressing Care, that I legitimately adored, scenes by which Landecker’s underrated performing capacity imbues this character with reality. But it surely’s virtually like she doesn’t assume viewers will comply with this arc with out the goofy, exaggerated stuff that performs like a CBS sitcom. That’s the “for worse” a part of this movie, though there could also be simply sufficient “for higher” ones to attract an viewers when it’s launched.

The “Clear” star performs Lauren, a newly divorced and new sober mother in L.A. who joins a category for industrial performing—as in, tips on how to actually promote the most recent pharmaceutical in a manner that will get your advert to run for years. In that class, run by an intense Gaby Hoffmann, Lauren is surrounded by twentysomethings, however what I like probably the most about “For Worse” is how little it leans on clichés about whether or not Lauren can slot in with individuals youthful than her. She could have totally different priorities, however she’s not finished having enjoyable both and want to have one thing extra than simply enjoyable along with her hunky scene accomplice Sean (Nico Haraga). When considered one of her classmates (Kiersey Clemons) invitations everybody to her wedding ceremony within the desert, Lauren and Sean go collectively, and that’s the place “For Worse” begins to succumb to sitcom set-ups like jealousy of the recent bridesmaid and a very horrendous character who tries to flirt along with her (performed by Ken Marino). Fortunately, Landecker provides her husband Bradley Whitford a terrific position to steadiness the nonsense.

There’s a relentless push-and-pull between compelled humor and natural laughter in “For Worse.” Landecker is likable sufficient to make this a tough film to hate, however I stored hoping the film would really let her unfastened as an alternative of pushing her from one uncomfortable encounter to a different. The reality is that we settle for a specific amount of sitcom set-ups in wedding ceremony rom-coms—Landecker name-drops a traditional in “My Finest Good friend’s Wedding ceremony,” and that movie isn’t precisely freed from silliness—so I wouldn’t blame anybody for going with the circulate on this one. I simply wished that circulate was a bit extra constant.

There’s the same YMMV facet to Katie Aselton’s heartfelt “Magic Hour,” a film that feels prefer it’s from a private place but in addition one which ran out of concepts for me earlier than it ran out of runtime. Aselton is making an attempt to say one thing new about grief and restoration, however she says most of it early on this comparatively brief movie, and I longed for one thing a bit deeper by its finish. Nonetheless, anybody who has handled the form of unimaginable ache that shifts actuality might resonate with this story of a lady who is aware of she’s now not steady and isn’t certain if she desires to be ever once more.

Aselton’s Erin has traveled to a stunning home within the desert close to Joshua Tree along with her husband Charlie (Daveed Diggs). From the start, the conversations between Erin and Charlie appear unusually weighted. There are discussions of one thing horrible of their latest previous, however Aselton’s movie doesn’t reveal it for about 20 minutes, so I’ll do my finest to speak across the particular occasion that introduced Erin and Charlie to this place to heal. Suffice to say, these two are now not the identical, and so they’ve come to the desert to determine tips on how to transfer on, or in the event that they even can.

As soon as the thriller of “Magic Hour” drifts away, the bizarre dialogue and blocking of the early scenes make extra sense, however right here’s the place the wheels begin to spin. I used to be with “Magic Hour” by means of its mysterious set-up and many of the emotional exchanges that adopted, however Aselton runs out of locations to go thereafter.

She admittedly makes use of her setting nicely as cinematographer Sarah Whelden embraces the movie that means of the title too, capturing the desert just like the surreal, magical place it may be. That is clearly a private venture for the underrated Aselton—she co-wrote it with accomplice Mark Duplass—and I’m joyful to see her return to her indie roots after the misstep of “Mack & Rita.” If it’s a narrative a few lady discovering out what’s subsequent for her, the very best factor to come back out of it might be that its creator might do the identical.