There There

The writer-director, Andrew Bujalski, zeros in on the delicate dances and negotiations between the people in these two-handers, which percolate with sly humor, decency, curiosity and sheer nerve.

There is a modest feeling to There There, and the emotional impact of its actual content might display the limits of this extreme methodology, but its (smartly brisk) runtime is hardly too steep a price to see a small movie explore such big questions with such clarity.

There There skews its world ever so slightly, arriving at some nicely off-kilter insights amid its non sequiturs, but for all its neat tricks, function is definitely following form here.

The artifice of There There certainly generates an added layer of frisson that might not have been there were the film shot under more conventional circumstances. But the root material has enough rich humanity and taut conflict to it that the result would have succeeded regardless.

There There doesn't come to life, even as an intellectual or artistic exercise.

Experimentalism isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but the form, content, visuals, and motifs of There There aren’t inspired or interesting enough to warrant serious mental engagement.

This far into the pandemic, with most Americans choosing to act as if it no longer exists, there may simply be no audience left for a gimmicky experimental narrative about people failing so completely to connect with those around them.