SXSW: Omni Loop, We Can Be Heroes, and Cuckoo
Written By: Ben Glickman
Based in Austin, Texas with the motto “Keep Austin Weird,” SXSW is one of the premier film festivals for those looking to show off their films that are a bit off the beaten path. The festival in 2024 was star-studded and alive, and it was an absolute blast to have been there in person. With that being said, here are some of the films I had the opportunity to see this year:
Omni Loop, directed by Bernardo Britto and starring Mary-Louise Parker and Ayo Edebiri was by far the most emotional film being shown at SXSW. The film centers on Zoya (Parker), a middle-aged scientist who only has one week to live, but also has a bottle of pills that takes her back in time exactly one week. Living the same week over and over before the black hole inside of her chest completely overtakes her, Zoya falls into a deep depression over what (she thinks) is the total failure of her life. While living her infinite routine, Zoya inadvertently meets Paula (Edebiri), a student at a local community college studying time. Together, with Zoya remembering everything and Paula remembering nothing, they must try to figure out a way to go back in time so that they both can fix their lives.
What makes the film such an emotional powerhouse (so much so that I cried 4 times during it) is how it portrays the regret that goes along with family relationships. Zoya’s regret lies with her husband and daughter, both of whom Zoya underappreciated as she tried to be the perfect housewife. While Zoya initially laments having settled for her husband, she eventually realizes how perfect they were together, and how happy she didn’t let herself be. I often think of the perfect relationship as being spontaneous and thrilling, like in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, but Zoya and her husband’s relationship, which is not especially spontaneous or passionate, is a relationship that I think often goes underrepresented in film. Unlike those films, their marriage is not perfect, but that does not mean that there isn’t true love within it. For Zoya and her husband, love comes from simply listening to each other and being present in their relationship, a dynamic best represented by an extended flashback sequence in which the husband encourages Zoya to leave him to pursue her dreams in Europe, while she instead chooses to stay. It is heartbreaking, and emotional, but also lovely, and made me leave the theater not in search of a picturesque ideal of love, but rather an appreciation for the love I have already found in my life.
The film also has a realistic portrayal of the dynamics between parent and child, something that most college students will probably have their own stories about. Zoya is on one end of the spectrum, with her daughter constantly worried she’ll disappoint Zoya, while Zoya simply wants her daughter to live the kind of life she never could. Paula lies on the other end, having her parents die when she was very young and desperately searching for a way to get back to them. Both relationships are representations of what it means to be either a parent or child, and it leads to an unlikely friendship between the two characters. One of my favorite lines in the film comes when Zoya and Paula are talking about their lives right before Zoya is going to be sent back in time, and Paula makes Zoya promise to find her once she goes back. It makes the ending of the film that much more heartbreaking when Zoya reveals to Paula that they’ve spent a lifetime together, of which Paula only remembers one week. Together, Zoya and Paula are able to untangle their own personal lives and create hope for the future, all the while teaching what it means to love somebody like family - a point that hit especially close to home for me.
All of these emotions are not to say that the film is just crying for 2 hours. The comedy in the movie is incredible, and there are many moments that made me genuinely laugh in the theater. The humor of the film is what made it such a pleasurable experience, and helped me relate to all of the characters more than a traditional drama would have been able to do, as I was able to grasp a deeper understanding of each of the characters through the jokes that they would make. The film’s use of science fiction elements was also incredibly well done, and felt very grounded in the real world - despite the fact that the entire film hinges around time travel.
Ultimately, Omni Loop is perhaps one of the most complete theater experiences I’ve ever had and I am praying that it is picked up by a production company so that everybody can get to experience it like I did.
We Can Be Heroes, directed by Alex Simmons and Carina Mia Wong, was another excellent film that I had the pleasure of seeing at SXSW. The film, a documentary, centers on everything SXSW loves - the weird and the wonderful. It documents a week at a summer camp, The Wayfinder Experience, in which kids can spend a full week immersed in a Live-Action Role Play (LARP) experience. The kids featured in the documentary are nothing short of joyous, funny and extremely creative. What spoke to me the most about the film was the way it depicted, without making fun of them, many neurodivergent kids who are often ostracized in other places in society like school, and allows them to show off what makes them unique.
The film tells the fictional story of the camp’s role-playing experience, a mythical tale of fairies and the end of magic in the world - which takes a surprisingly dark but sentimental turn by the end of the film. In the film there are several “characters” that we are introduced to, each with their own series of problems that they hope to solve through the program. There are three kids that the film focuses on in the film: Sky, Dexter, and Abby.
Sky, known in the film as Eli, is one of the youngest kids at Wayfinder and is the self-proclaimed “greatest sword fighter in the world,” despite only starting to learn sword fighting a mere week before the camp started. Throughout the fictional story, they take on the role of the antagonist, despite being a “good guy” at the beginning. Their journey throughout the film finds them constantly butting heads with other campers and wanting to do things their way. Dedicated to letting kids explore themselves, Jud (the head of Wayfinder), and the rest of the counselors do their best to give Sky what they need in order to succeed at the camp. Sky’s story is funny, and they show a lot of personality throughout the entire film and are one of the most fun parts of watching it.
Dexter is one of, if not the most, creative kids featured in the film. A self-published novelist who also serves as the film’s narrator, his command over words and love for storytelling is apparent throughout the entire film, and he provides many of the film’s most heartfelt moments. His goal throughout the film is to talk and hopefully begin to go out with his crush, something he is ultimately unsuccessful at, but in doing so he learns many things about himself and gets over many of his fears - namely ticks and public speaking. He serves as the creative center of the film and his story was one of the most engaging told as the film progressed.
Abby, to me, is the emotional heart of the film. Diagnosed with a condition that has her eat through a feeding tube, she is at first uncertain if she will even be able to attend Wayfinder, given her condition. She ends up being able to go to camp and from there becomes a magnetic personality on the screen. She shows so many moments of genuine kindness and hilarity, and she is very open about the ways in which her condition affects her ability to exist, and how she is able to move past it through LARPing. Her story grounded the film in reality, and along with Dexter, made up a significant part of why the film was so compelling.
There are many other characters that make up this incredible story, and the film is such a wonderful way of representing people, especially children, that are so often overlooked both in film and the real world, and lets them show just how creative, funny and amazing they are. This was definitely one of the most enjoyable viewing experiences of the entire festival.
Finally, I had the opportunity to see Cuckoo directed by Tilman Singer and starring Hunter Schafer. This film is one of the most unique premises for a horror film that I’ve ever seen and its ability to pull off what should have been a complete mess left me in awe for days after watching it. In the film, Schafer plays Gretchen, an American girl, who moves into the mountains of Germany with her father, stepmother, and stepsister. The place to which they move is run by Mr. König (Dan Stevens), whose entire demeanor, wardrobe and voice are reminiscent of the stereotypical German villain, and who made my skin crawl every time he spoke. What sets the film into motion, then, is Gretchen’s discovery that many of the women of the town are disappearing, and Gretchen is the only person who seems to care about it.
While the film is much too complex to summarize here, and I wish for all of the readers to be able to experience it on their own without my spoiling it, it is important to address the technical marvel of the film. One of the horror elements of the films is that characters are sometimes hypnotized into reliving the same 10 seconds over and over and over so that they can be killed. In the film, this is accomplished through genius editing and sound design that allows the viewer to feel the genuine fear that the characters are experiencing, along with their confusion, by overstimulating the audience with very repetitive and eerie sounds, along with choppy, disparate editing. The cuts in these moments feel so natural, that it is not always immediately clear when they begin going into a loop, something that makes the reveal that they are even more scary. Beyond that, every actor gives their all during these moments and it pays dividends for the viewer, as there is some fear that I could feel in every cell in my bones from just a single look.
Another recurring horror element in the film is the trill of birds, which often goes hand in hand with the looping sensation. The film shows this trill being created by a human neck (which I learned afterwards was entirely fabricated), and the realism of the neck and viscerality of the moving of the throat made each moment so much more grotesquely satisfying. While the film does rely on these two techniques for much of its horror, it did not get old at all for me, and I was always fearful when I could hear the musical motif reappear in a seemingly unsuspecting scene.
The best part of the film, however, has to be Hunter Schafer, who gives it her all in her role as the final girl of the film. While it is not a traditional horror film, and some lines in the script are a little cringy, she drives the film and her performance and commitment to the physicality of the horror makes the film that much more fun to watch, and makes her character that much easier to root for. Dan Stevens, who plays the villain, also gives a great performance and makes every scene he is in so intensely uncomfortable.
Despite all of this, Cuckoo is not going to be a crowd-pleaser and I expect reception to be very mixed on it. In the group I saw it with, I was by far the highest on it, although nobody said that they outright disliked it. I will admit that there are parts of it that are not well explained, and require a certain amount of intense brain work in order to understand, but I think that made the movie more entertaining, as I felt just as confused as some of the characters. Cuckoo is also only the second feature that the director, Singer, has made, and sometimes it shows. However, the film is super fun and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. The film is releasing on May 3, and if you are a fan of genuinely weird horror, I strongly recommend that you go and check it out.