Celebrities got here to Park Metropolis for the final time this weekend (presuming they don’t return to hit the slopes), together with Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Penelope Cruz. Three of essentially the most anticipated films of Sundance 2026 dropped over the primary few days of the fest. They’re all, to various levels, value a glance.
Macon Blair turned probably the most sudden winners of the Grand Jury Prize for his 2017 directorial debut “I Don’t Really feel at Dwelling in This World Anymore,” however his follow-up, “The Poisonous Avenger,” obtained misplaced in a distribution nightmare, making his newest pitch-black comedy a little bit of a comeback. He’s not in competitors this yr, however he’s again in his wheelhouse with “The Shitheads,” a Coen-esque comedy about colossal fuck-ups who find yourself caught with a spoiled wealthy child who doesn’t consider in penalties. “The Shitheads” will get a bit too messy within the ultimate act, however it’s nonetheless a intelligent flick with an undercurrent of social commentary about how the bar for simply being thought-about worthwhile on this world can depend upon the dimensions of your inheritance.
Davis (Jackson) is launched as he’s being fired from his newest job overseeing troubled youth for taking them to see a very inappropriate film. Completely adrift and questioning his religion, he will get a gig working for a low-level transport operation—a fast shot later within the movie of the again room reveals containers of lobsters and two shirtless males doing one thing with medicine, so it looks as if they’ll transfer something for the appropriate worth. On this case, what they’re being requested to maneuver is an individual: Sheridan Kimberley (Mason Thames of the “Black Cellphone” films), a type of ultra-rich youngsters whose mother and father have left him with paid assist a lot that he’s mainly turn out to be a sociopath. A viral persona for his Paul Brothers-esque on-line persona, Kimberley is being despatched to a rehab facility—what occurs when wealthy people commit crimes—for lighting an unhoused man on fireplace for the clicks.
Davis is joined on this street journey with one other recently-fired man named Mark (Dave Franco), a critical drug consumer who simply needs to get his cash, get excessive, and go house. Franco is superb as he leans into an archetype that characterised lots of his brother’s roles years in the past because the barely-lovable loser, a man who’s not fairly an fool as a lot as he simply doesn’t all the time make the appropriate decisions. In a number of the movie’s funniest beats, Sheridan spots that Mark is the weaker of the 2 nearly instantly and begins fucking along with his head. Earlier than it, medicine have been ingested and a stripper (Kiernan Shipka) has been dispatched to the motel room they’re sharing for the night time. Issues get a lot worse from there.
Blair’s script isn’t simply persistently humorous; it’s additionally subtly sharp about what it says about class and the really vile people who find themselves allowed to do no matter they need inside it. Positive, Mark and Davis are what could be referred to as losers, however why? They make errors. They may not be that vibrant. However they don’t mild folks on fireplace for consideration. They’re looking for their means as an alternative of being carried. And but it’s the really terrible man who has tens of millions of followers. In the long run, it’s a movie that makes one rethink its title. Is it the strange guys who’re taking part in “Transporter”? Or might or not it’s the tens of millions of people that flip attention-seeking conduct into cultural forex?
Somebody who can be serious about all of the broad personalities of “The Shitheads” have been they actual folks is the great John Wilson, star of the HBO crucial darling “Methods to with John Wilson.” The quirky documentarian is an underrated humanist, somebody who’s fascinated by folks—what they do, what they really feel, and the way the 2 intersect. His newest, “The Historical past of Concrete,” could possibly be dismissed as a 100-minute episode of his present, however don’t let that dissuade you from seeing it. Sure, it has the same vibe as Wilson follows rabbit holes that by some means join the Parthenon to Hallmark Motion pictures to DMX, consider it or not. Wilson has boundless curiosity in his topics, and he’s made a movie that’s ostensibly about concrete however turns into a examine of what lasts in society, what has cracks, and what wants restore. It’s implausible.
Wilson opens his movie nearly like a vlog, speaking about the way it’s been troublesome to discover a follow-up challenge to his hit present. As he’s exploring choices, he attends a workshop in the course of the strike of 2023 on how you can write a Hallmark Film of all issues, the place he learns in regards to the formulation behind the one cable community that’s truly rising in viewership. His examine of the Hallmark machine leads him to a tacky rom-com that’s additionally by some means about inexpensive housing, which, together with issues along with his personal NY residence relating to a cracked basis, leads him to think about concrete: its use, prevalence, and even its weaknesses. As you’ll be able to think about, promoting his crew and collaborators on a film about concrete isn’t simple.
In fact, as with all issues John Wilson, it isn’t nearly concrete. Whereas you’ll study extra in regards to the grey stuff than you ever thought you’d, it’s mainly only a basis (pun meant) for Wilson to fulfill folks and discover out about what strikes them and defines them. When a possible financier says they want a musical component to journey the wave of profitable streaming docs about musicians, he stumbles into the sphere of a New York artist who heads a neighborhood band referred to as Nebulas. At one level, he discover himself on the set of a micro-budget quick movie that appears to be about actual property and homicide. He all the time swings again to concrete, particularly the way it’s utilized, however it’s a movie in regards to the individuals who work with concrete and even dwell on it greater than the product itself. John Wilson tasks are all the time greater than they appear to be. I hope he makes many extra of them.
Lastly, there’s Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite,” a variation on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as a deteriorating couple wrestle via a dinner with a pair of company that they barely know. Wilde, additionally at Sundance because the star of “I Need Your Intercourse,” opens her movie with a quote from a legendary author with a shared surname. “One ought to all the time be in love,” wrote Oscar Wilde. “That’s the rationale one ought to by no means marry.” Clearly, it’s going to be a bumpy journey.
The married couple on the ropes listed here are music instructor Joe (Rogen) and his spouse Angela (Wilde). After a protracted day, he comes house to seek out Angela in a panic, organising for a cocktail party that she swears she advised him about and that he denies realizing about. Which suggests he didn’t get any wine. She tells him that their upstairs neighbors Pina (Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) can be there in ten minutes. And don’t contact the cheese plate.
From the very starting of Rashida Jones and Will McCormack’s script, Joe is one thing of a petulant brat, insisting that the feast be canceled and refusing to assist Angela’s plans. In a primary act that feels too broad and overwritten too usually, Wilde makes clear that these folks can barely stand one another, going via the motions of a dissolving marriage.
Naturally, dropping attractive strangers right into a fraught dynamic can solely result in hassle. It doesn’t assist that Pina and Hawk are primarily the alternative of their neighbors. Pina is a therapist; Angela appears to wrestle to entry her personal feelings, a lot much less these of others. Hawk is a fireman who’s truthfully serious about different folks; Joe has crippling again ache and borders on misanthropic. One of many issues that’s been aggravating Joe is the loud intercourse that Hawk & Pina have been having that retains him up at night time; it’s not shocking to study late within the movie that Joe & Angela haven’t had intercourse in a really very long time.
These opposing personalities bounce off one another with dialogue that alternates between witty and overwritten. There are only a few too many beats in “The Invite” that sound like writers as an alternative of individuals, though the movie does settle into a greater groove as we study extra about these infinite founts of witty bon mots.
It helps an awesome deal to have a quartet that’s this gifted. Rogen takes the character that’s essentially the most irritating on the web page—as humorous as he might be within the context of the movie, Joe is actually a troublesome man to be round—and does the heavy appearing work of discovering the damaged humanity beneath his assholery. As he nearly all the time does, Norton makes good, sudden decisions, particularly late in one of many movie’s greatest dramatic beats. Cruz isn’t dangerous and infrequently nice. And, after all, Wilde deserves credit score for creating the appropriate ambiance as a director for her solid to seek out their characters.
My points with “The Invite” are nearly fully on a screenwriting degree. One thing like this must hum with believability, and this usually performs extra like an appearing train than a personality examine. That’s advantageous, after all, and “The Invite” is actually value seeing for its solid and humorous moments, however whenever you endeavor to make a relationship dramedy just like the Edward Albee and Woody Allen ones that formed the shape, one hopes for one thing that isn’t in the end so shallow.
