I'll be a departure from a good number of reviewers and spare the synopsis. It's at the top of the page, for Christ's sake.
The direction was fairly minimal but I thought effective. An entire film shot in booths has its limits. With a couple of exceptions, I also didn't think the performances were that bad, especially given what little they had to play off of. Again, the limits that have to be dealt with given the approach.
I liked the premise, but it needs to come together at the end to be satisfying, and I don't think it really got there. I'm not saying you have to LIKE the resolution, but you do have to at least recognize it as the culmination of every bread crumb that's been laid before you, and there was too much that fell short.
The movie is obviously all dialogue, but surprisingly little of that dialogue actually contributed to the story. I recognize that maybe it was revelatory to some degree as to the mechanics of each character, but even as you watch it you know it's not really fleshing out the mystery in any substantive way. It's just padding. So, you're basically listening to a handful of archetypes blather on like any typical student does (to the ear of an actual adult). I'm guessing this may have first been done as a 30-minute student film with 3-4 fewer characters.
There has been mention of the anti-male talking points. Those were minimal, but once the first one hit, it took up a chair in the back of my mind and never really went away, right up through the false credits which included the final shot at men. It made it extra delicious that this shot not only was a shade off of the proper use of the term "derivative" to describe male producers, but it was misspelled as well. :)
If this were a typical indie horror pic of this quality, I'd recommend it as ambient noise while you're busying yourself with other things. But this one requires that you sit and actively listen to it, so it is held to a higher level before it can get a nod.
It's not garbage. If you're really interested in this approach to storytelling, give it a try. Maybe you'll get more out of it than I did. But I'm guessing you'll likely click out of it a little disappointed.
Take care.
