by Darian Davis, Staff Writer

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film and TV Festival has come to an end, and with it a flurry of world premieres, immersive activations, and filmmaker Q&As. As mentioned in my preview, this was my very first time attending a major film festival, and I was thoroughly intimidated by the scale of the event and the variety of films screening all over the amazing city of Austin. That being said, I couldn’t have had a better experience. I enjoyed a bit of BBQ (specifically Stubbs and Terry Black’s if you’re curious) and downed a few Lone Stars like any good tourist should. I’m also excited to say that festival “queue culture” is alive and well at SXSW, and I quickly got into the groove of chatting up the folks standing in line around me about our shared love of film and how to navigate the screening schedule. Overall, I was honored to sit in on some amazing world premieres by new and up-and-coming voices. I hope each one of the films mentioned below finds a home to be enjoyed by wider audiences, because they deserve to be seen.

Remaining Native
Directed by Paige Bethmann
Runtime: 85 minutes

Director Paige Bethmann’s documentary feature debut is a poetic and contemplative portrait of a teen reconciling his aspirations with his Indigenous roots. Remaining Native spotlights 17-year-old Ku Stevens, an uncoached solo runner at his high school and member of the Yerington Paiute tribe hoping to get the attention of the University of Oregon. Ku yearns to leave his tiny, rural Northwest Nevadan town, and Bethmann’s sweeping cinematography of the desert landscape drives home the film’s inherent sense of longing for and seclusion from the outside world.

This film does not play like a typical documentary. Yes you have the usual talking heads giving us insight into Ku’s story, but there are also beautifully scripted passages read by Ku himself, revealing his inner monologue as he makes connections to his ancestors through his desire to run and the distance between him and his culture. These soliloquies create a level of intimacy and empathy for Ku’s journey, and primes the soil for the tragic parallel account of the many daring escapes Ku’s great-grandfather and many other children made from the Stewart Indian Boarding School. This dark past weighs heavy on Ku’s shoulders, and Bethmann tenderly illustrates the burden one can carry as they leave their community to explore their potential. Bethmann’s Remaining Native tells a unique story of a young man trying to do just that, which feels new and representative in its subject matter, but familiar to anyone who’s confronted the reality of their present with the potential of their future.

Together
Written and directed by Michael Shanks
Runtime: 102 minutes

Dave Franco and Alison Brie are absolute weirdos, and I love them for it. Their on-screen collaborations on bizarro comedies like The Little Hours and The Disaster Artist touches that quirky comedy bone of mine that is hard to hit. Together is by far the husband-wife duo’s most prominent film appearance to-date, and while their natural chemistry simmers through the big screen, Franco and Brie are ultimately let down by an uneven script that vacillates between metaphorical prestige and body horror camp.

The film follows Millie (Alison Brie) and Tim (Dave Franco), a couple caught in a rut who try to use their move from the city to a secluded home in the woods to reignite their strained relationship. A fateful walk through the wilderness ends with a tumble down a cavernous hole in the ground where they become unwitting hosts to a specter hellbent on fusing them together. Anyone who’s been in a committed relationship for a period of time may understand their predicament, which makes their eventual plight of being literally attracted to each other feel all the more intriguing. What better way to grow closer than an unnamed supernatural entity that literally melds two beings into one? The fun in this film is all the batshit-crazy ways director Michael Shanks forces Franco and Brie together, including one very unfortunate binding during a quickie in a bathroom stall which is worth the price of admission alone.

Personally, I wish there were more practical effects to inflate the gross-out factor, but any body horror enthusiasts will be pleased with the quality of VFX to unsettle the squeamish. There is something deeper here Shanks alludes to around Plato’s Other Half Theory and the concept of two individuals being part of a whole. Shanks uses this idea to end Together in his own unique way, but it ultimately comes apart in favor of the film’s self-referential tone and commitment to its promised gimmick.

Death of a Unicorn
Written and directed by Alex Scharfman
Runtime: 108 minutes

A24 successfully delivers a riotous ensemble of actors in the most preposterous and bloody fun I’ve had at the movies so far this year. I was among the many who couldn’t wait to be seated for Alex Scharfman’s sci-fi fantasy horror comedy Death of a Unicorn as it made its headlining world premiere during SXSW’s first weekend. The film stars Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as father and daughter Elliot and Ridley who accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat, where Elliot’s billionaire boss Odell (Richard E. Grant) seeks to exploit the creature’s miraculous curative properties.

Even with a trailer and poster all but revealing the film’s absurd premise, I still wasn’t prepared for the heights of unrestrained insanity Scharfman stuffs into this R-rated gem. The cast is a perfect match and clearly enjoyed working together, as evident by their impeccable comedic timing and line delivery. Will Poulter is a stand out as Odell’s entitled, soft-handed son Shepard, nailing every scene with just the right amount of privileged idiocy. Despite its genre-bending, Death of a Unicorn is firmly grounded as a fantasy. The rugged Canadian landscape and Odell’s French-provincial style mansion evoke a modern storybook quality, with Ortega’s red-hoodie-wearing, vape-huffing Ridley appearing like a goth-ed out Little Red Riding Hood. The movie takes the mythology of the unicorn and invents its own rules while delivering buckets upon buckets of gore. Truly, this film is a bloodbath of epic proportions with virtually no one safe from an old-fashioned run-through by the gnarly horn of a vengeful unicorn. Beyond the movie’s thrills, Scharfman also manages to tell a poignant story about family and accepting loved ones for who they are in all circumstances. I can’t wait to see this one again on the big screen.

Good Boy
Directed by Ben Leonberg
Written by Alex Cannon and Ben Leonberg
Runtime: 73 minutes

Dog parents, rejoice! Director Ben Leonberg has provided a sinister answer to the question, “What is my dog staring at?” in a wholly original haunted house film that unfolds like Poltergeist, if it were shot entirely from E Buzz the retriever’s perspective.

After Indy moves into a vacant family home with his sick human Todd, he is immediately disturbed by empty corners, ghost dogs, and an invisible presence that threatens Todd’s very life. Good Boy premiered in the Midnighter category at SXSW, and rightly so. It’s a quiet film where the terror is mostly in what you don’t see (or what you think you see). The film’s lead, Indy the dog, is a star, leading us through the dreaded house with wordless whimpers and studying stare downs. Indy’s performance is even more impressive considering his only training was what Leonberg (as his real-life human) taught him over a shooting period of 400 days. Because the film has very little dialogue except for some necessary exposition from humans, its 73-minute runtime starts to drag. However, Leonberg makes up for it with an incisive script that explores Todd’s illness in parallel with the unseen evil, and how both slowly oppress the house and its two inhabitants.

New Jack Fury
Written and directed by Lanfia Wal
Runtime: 88 minutes

Lanfia Wal’s debut feature is an unapologetic love letter to the blaxploitation and buddy cop movies of the seventies and eighties. As an irreverent send-up, New Jack Fury doesn’t add anything new or entertaining to the conversation around Black representation in Hollywood or the indiscriminate gang violence and police brutality that still pervades Black and Brown neighborhoods. I also don’t think Wal is interested in offering a perspective on those weighty topics. Instead, the film is exactly as presented: a VCR recording of a corny movie-of-the-week you might have decided to tape while channel surfing late at night three decades ago. Wal even throws in commercial breaks featuring funny promos that I definitely connected with as a Black man.

What I’m more impressed by are the expansive CGI sets Wal generates for the film. Most of the movie is shot with the actors on green screen, but the technical quality of the generated production design and lighting has a depth and texture to it that immersed me in the absurdity running rampant on the fictional streets of New Jack City. The oddball comedy between Rick James lookalike Hendrix Moon (Paul Wheeler) and Michael Jackson wannabe Leslie Kindall (Dean “Michael Trapson” Morrow) make for the film’s most engaging scenes, as well as a phenomenal arcade side-scroller moment a la Street Fighter. I really wanted to love this film. Its visuals are slick, its characters are sexy, but New Jack Fury relies too heavily on parody material that’s been well-worn and better executed decades ago.

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