Movie · 2020 · Mystery, Thriller, Drama · 2h 15m · R · English
Curator score: 5.1/10 (633K ratings)
It stays, it sticks, it lingers.
Overview
Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.1/10
IMDb: 6.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.46/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Metacritic: 78
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
Charlie Kaufman
Production
Likely Story, Projective Testing Service
Cast
Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette, David Thewlis, Guy Boyd, Hadley Robinson, Gus Birney, Abby Quinn, Colby Minifie, Anthony Grasso, Teddy Coluca, Jason Ralph, Oliver Platt, Frederick E. Wodlin, Ryan Steele, Unity Phelan, Norman Aaronson, Ashlyn Alessi, Monica Ayres, Julie Chateauvert
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A dense, unsettling psychological puzzle that blends relationship drama, surreal horror, and existential dread into a deliberately disorienting experience. It’s not for viewers who want clean answers, but it rewards attention with striking performances, sharp formal control, and a haunting emotional aftertaste.
Best for
Viewers who enjoy ambiguous, interpretation-heavy films
Fans of psychological horror and surreal drama
People interested in existential themes, memory, and identity
Audiences who appreciate bold acting and formal experimentation
Skip if
You want a straightforward thriller with clear plot mechanics
You dislike ambiguity or symbolic storytelling
You prefer naturalistic dialogue and conventional pacing
You want a warm, accessible date-night movie
Overview
Charlie Kaufman turns a simple road-trip premise into a claustrophobic spiral of memory, regret, and self-revision. The film keeps mutating in tone and identity, using repetition, literary references, and eerie domestic detail to make ordinary conversation feel unstable and threatening.
Worth noting
Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons anchor the movie with performances that are both intimate and uncanny, while Toni Collette and David Thewlis add a volatile, almost theatrical charge to the farmhouse sequences. The result is less a mystery to solve than a mood to inhabit: funny, sad, grotesque, and deeply anxious.
Bottom line
It can feel intentionally frustrating if you’re looking for a tidy explanation, but that friction is part of the design. As a piece of psychological unease and formal invention, it’s one of the more memorable films of its kind in recent years.
Top Letterboxd reviews
demi adejuyigbe · 14461 likes
Too dumb to understand this. Said as much out loud when the movie ended and my friends confidently explained the synopsis, and I literally did not pick up on any of it. Felt like I was listening to freeform jazz only to have the lights come on and see everybody crying. It sure felt like a nice movie though! Everyone’s just bringing their A game here. Buckley is such a talent, and Toni Collette is one of the funniest actors we… more Too dumb to understand this. Said as much out loud when the movie ended and my friends confidently explained the synopsis, and I literally did not pick up on any of it. Felt like I was listening to freeform jazz only to have the lights come on and see everybody crying. It sure felt like a nice movie though! Everyone’s just bringing their A game here. Buckley is such a talent, and Toni Collette is one of the funniest actors we… more
Morgan (0.5★) · 14038 likes
I’m Thinking of Ending My Netflix Subscription
mia lee vicino (4.5★) · 8304 likes
while iain reid's novel extracts horror from blood and dread, charlie kaufman's interpretation extracts it from existentialism, from the unavoidability of aging, from the unease of being perceived, from the eeriness permeating the claustrophobic atmosphere. they both tell the same story in completely different ways, which is exactly what a book-to-film adaptation should aim to do.
in the book, there's a fascinating passage about how humans need allegory and metaphor in order to more comprehensively understand the world around us.… more
michaelpdf (5★) · 7108 likes
how many times does toni collette have to scream before y'all finally give her the oscar
Sally Darr (2.5★) · 6911 likes
this movie is kinda like when you have sex with a film bro and he thinks it’s great and you don’t know what happened and he gaslights you into thinking it was incredible