A delightfully deadpan relationship comedy that plays like a cross between something from Quentin Dupieux and Jared and Jerusha Hess, Somebody Up There Likes Me is an imaginative paean to world-weary nonchalance. Directed by Bob Byington, this subversive little treat flirts with absurdism but never tips over into hipster posturing in chronicling a bunch of domestic ennui and professional unhappiness that its characters pretty much seem to all shruggingly accept.



After listless waiter Max Youngman (Keith Poulson, looking like a cousin of Jack White) catches his first wife (Kate Lyn Sheil) in bed with another guy, Max tries to get back in the dating game. In his breadstick-loving co-worker Lylah (Jess Weixler), Max promptly finds weirdo love. They promptly marry (“All right, well, let’s give this thing a try and see who gives out first,” he says on their wedding night), and Max and Lylah eventually even have a son, before temptation in the form of their babysitter-turned-nanny Clarissa (Stephanie Hunt) helps scuttle things and send Lylah into the arms of Max’s best friend, Sal (Nick Offerman, above right).

Somebody Up There Likes Me, though, isn’t a movie of emotional realism, much less hand-wringing. Behavior and plot twists that would be played for drama in your average indie film are here things to be talked about from a sort of befuddled remove. Characters have trouble remembering the names of people they’ve known for years, instead referring to them by description. Byington’s film also flashes forward several times in segments of five years, but he makes no great effort to mark the time in anything but the most cursory of fashion.

Part of the movie eventually tries to address this pause of measurement, but to call it a pay-off is to overstate matters, since it’s chiefly a shrug-inducing cutesy quirk almost irrelevant to the film’s charms and beguiling hold. Somebody Up There Likes Me isn’t a movie of much outwardly apparent depth, but it does have a philosophically playful streak that warmly embraces the futility of so much human endeavor. There’s some conventional repartee, but Byington’s film is marked mostly by a motley assortment of inappropriate, oblivious and off-the-wall soliloquies and exchanges, the common thread being a tone of detached puzzlement.

With an original score from Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio that nicely encompasses a wry leitmotif, and a series of animated vignettes by Bob Sabistan (of A Scanner Darkly) that blend together the jumps in time, Somebody Up There Likes Me is a brisk, fun and funny little bauble that doesn’t overstay its welcome. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. In addition to its theatrical engagements in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Denver and Austin, Somebody Up There Likes Me is also currently available nationwide on VOD platforms. (Tribeca Film, R, 75 minutes)

There’s a unique, chilly vibe that hangs over Come Out and Play, an unnerving, humid slice of elemental horror that definitely has nothing to do with the old song of the same name by the Offspring. Summoning up disparate recollections of George Romero, Children of the Corn and even, fleetingly, Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger, this artful genre entry works the mind like a punching bag before finally playing a hand that, narratively, isn’t as much of a winner. The odd story behind this film (dedicated to the martyrs of Stalingrad!) and its singularly named anonymous director, Makinov, may sound (and ultimately be) worthy of a movie itself, but shouldn’t totally overshadow the things about Come Out and Play that work.



During a romantic getaway to Mexico, Francis (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) insists on taking his pregnant wife Beth (Vinessa Shaw) to a more serene locale. So they rent a boat and head toward what they believe to be a charming little island. Once there, however, an atmosphere of unease sets in — the restaurant and hotel they find are abandoned, and the duo feel they’re being watched. Smiling and giggling kids pop up here and there, but no adults. And those kids aren’t innocent, it turns out — they’re murderous. A fight for survival ensues, as Francis tries to get Beth safely off the island.

The Russian-born Makinov, who wore a variety of masks during filming in order to protect his anonymity, updates Juan José Plan’s 1976 Spanish film El Juego De Niños with an eye and mind toward austere travelogue realism. (And Soon the Darkness and Melissa George’s overlooked 2010 film Triangle are other vaguely similar mood pieces, though the latter less for its doom-loop plot than simply its equally spare setting.) The location settings ooze authenticity, and yet even in this openness he manages to locate some claustrophobia, with over-the-shoulder hallway tracking shots and a panicked auto escape. With a score that drifts into Moog and theremin, and conjures up the distorted low hum of a bi-plane, Makinov succeeds in creating a mood of looming dread.

A little of this goes a long way, though, and Come Out and Play kind of plateaus once Francis and Beth figure out the depths of danger these spooky, silent kids represent. The narrative is almost by definition painted into a corner that requires the introduction of awkward exposition, but the manner in which this is handled — once the pair meet another adult who’s survived a night of brutal attacks — is rather deflating. Even in streamlined form, this tale loses its grip. Still, the ominous effectiveness of its set-up and middle portion beckons, heralding the possible arrival of a bizarre new international talent in the thriller-suspense genre — one whose skill with the language of fear supersedes the need to speak English. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Cinedigm, R, 75 minutes)