Directed by Brandon Dermer
Written by Alisha Ketry
Starring: Jillian Bell, Natalie Morales, Blake Anderson, Kyle Newacheck
Runtime: 83 minutes
In Theaters and On Demand November 4

by Mathilda Hallstrom, Staff Writer

Grief and its consequences are seldom ubiquitous; they are experienced in different ways at different times by different people. Grief can be devastating, earth-shattering; it can be funny and endearing, experienced as a lighthearted memorial to a life lost; it can be all of these things at once and more. Brandon Dermer’s I’m Totally Fine, however, is…none of those things.

I am, admittedly, an emotional movie-watcher. It’s rare that I give my full attention to a film and walk away entirely unaffected, especially a film that purports to examine and grapple with the manifestations of grief in one’s life. But truthfully, I left this movie feeling completely neutral.

It’s important to distinguish here that I’m Totally Fine is not necessarily a bad movie. At no point does it take any risks that fail to pay off, only because it seems to take no risks whatsoever. The film’s ambition begins and ends with its premise: after the death of Vanessa’s (Jillian Bell) best friend and business partner Jennifer (Natalie Morales), she embarks on a solo self-care trip to regain her sanity. She wakes up one day to find Jennifer standing in the kitchen — only it’s not Jennifer, it’s an extraterrestrial being in Jennifer’s body (different movie) sent on a mission to conduct tests on Vanessa’s human capabilities for alien data collection purposes. Vanessa, with no apparent motivation, agrees. Along the way, she receives support via FaceTime from her boyfriend Eric (Blake Anderson), whose sole characteristics are playing bass and loving Vanessa, and from an unnamed townie (Kyle Newacheck) whose sole characteristic is that he smokes cigarettes.

But the story, despite its absurdist aspirations, is exceedingly unremarkable. It’s not so much a story as it is a series of montages scored by what I assume to be a cluster of Garageband-crafted lofi beats to study and chill to-esque tracks. Dermer’s apparent attempt to endear us to his characters through a series of lighthearted drug-fueled romps are dejectedly vapid in execution, redeemed only momentarily by brief flashes of Jillian Bell’s comedic brilliance.

But don’t let that fool you; despite these brief flashes, I’m Totally Fine’s primary sin lies in its dearth of comedic brilliance. Every character is far too one-dimensional to engender an effective performance, and with a cast of comedic all-stars like Bell, Morales, and Anderson, that dead space can’t go unnoticed. Morales does her best with a difficult task, but doesn’t quite make the mark — granted, she’s playing an extraterrestrial, but an extraterrestrial so flat and hollow that she’s not given any room to make salient choices. Her choices are instead akin to a college student’s improv imitation of an alien: funny the first time, and then never again.

I’m Totally Fine seems to exist for little reason and makes no real argument, but it damningly fails to breach any true emotion. It exists, somehow, between two mediocre polarities: a tepid, lackluster imitation of goofiness and a stale mimicry of a woman processing the greatest loss of her life, neither of which are achieved very effectively. The stakes aren’t just small here, they’re nonexistent; nothing is learned, or given, or taken. Vanessa isn’t truly granted the opportunity to mourn her friend, only the opportunity to take MDMA with an extraterrestrial and dance to Papa Roach. Without any real emotional depth or consequence, I’m Totally Fine disappoints the audience and its own intentions.