In the Mouth

Screening after: Aaron and His Dad Try to Find Closure & Lucy Celebrates Andie’s Birthday at Universal CityWalk Hollywood

ERIC SAYS While there have been other depictions of agoraphobia on screen, you’d be right to think something felt a little different about this one—that somehow, despite its surreal visual style and deadpan humor, it feels a little realer than anything you’ve seen before on the subject. That’s with very good reason: director Cory Santilli made this film as an expression—and within the constraints—of the very real case of agoraphobia they’ve lived with for more than four years now.

In a remarkable redirection of real-life setbacks into creative breakthroughs, In the Mouth uses its intimate knowledge of agoraphobia as fuel for an exciting brew of dark comedy and thrills worthy of comparison to the Coen Brothers and Jim Jarmusch. Star Colin Burgess (of 2023’s Dad & Step-Dad and Lockjaw, also in this year’s festival) is quickly becoming a New/Next all-star, and here he gives a particularly commanding central performance. Like a great silent comedian, the laughs he delivers always carry with them an undercurrent of his character’s worries and fears, giving them a heft bordering on the cathartic. (Eric Allen Hatch)