Feeling That It’s Time to Do Something (currently streaming on Hulu) is a very nice title. LONG. Evocative. Existential regret springs from here. The film is the feature debut of writer, director and star Joanna Arnow, who has created an offbeat, autofictional comedy about a 30-something New Yorker at the peak of boredom. For example, what is this strange thing called joy? And that apathy permeates every component of his life (work, family, sex) and is on full display throughout this film, which adopts the downtrodden flat tone and (literally physically) nakedness of its protagonist. It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s not for everyone, but it definitely comes from the voice of a new filmmaker.

Main idea: We meet Ann (Arnow) while she’s naked and bumping into Allen’s (Scott Cohen) leg while she sleeps. “I love that you don’t care if I cum,” he says, breaking the awkward silence by making the moment even more awkward – at least for us. This is how we learn that Ann is submissive in her BDSM relationship with this older man. She is always naked in his presence and addresses him as “master”. They’ve been doing this for nine years. Ann was 24 at the time and is now 33. Allen doesn’t even remember going to Wesleyan, despite being asked and answered who knows how many times. Is that part of the job? Interesting? Or is it the truth of his insensitivity? Where is Ann’s line between sexual fantasy and cold reality? Ann asked Allen, “Do you think people can change?” he asks, and his answer is “I don’t know,” and that moment feels like the thesis statement of the movie.

It’s equally awkward at work – a do-it-all desk job at a faceless company, no matter what – in a strangely quiet meeting where Ann gets slapped for asking what is perceived as a stupid question. Later, Ann meets with her manager, and the manager tells her that if Ann completes the project she is working on, you will “override your own job.” Ann’s family? Annoying. They sit in awkward silence at the dinner table until Ann, sensing his lack of effort, says, “You To know I don’t celebrate Memorial Day! Later, Ann’s parents will give her a box containing all of her homework from middle school. He doesn’t want this. But should they just throw it away? (Her parents are speaking.) I mean, don’t these things represent Ann, who was once young and hopeful and never mixed up with zombies? (I’m reading this.)

The good thing is that Ann isn’t chained to Allen, and I’m speaking figuratively. The worst part is, she dates other dorms, one of whom gives her bunny ears and a pig nose and writes F— PIG on her belly in marker. It’s hard to say whether he’s involved or not. It’s pretty lethargic, walled in. If he didn’t like it, would he say no? It’s hard to say. His face is in a constant state of emptiness. But it certainly fits the deep passivity the face in question expresses in its expressionlessness. The cycle continues: back to Allen, watching the progress bar on his work computer slowly tick away, his parents passive-aggressively expressing their disappointment. Then she meets Chris (Babak Tafti), a sweet guy. Stupid. It’s endearingly awkward, rather than the hopeless way this movie has been stifled for 40, maybe 50 minutes by this point. He is non-judgmental and even open to being obliged by Ann’s particular provocations. And… is that the smile on Ann’s face? I haven’t seen this yet. Will there be more?

What Movies Will It Remind You?: Arnow hits a ton somewhere in the middle of Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach, and Lena Dunham.

Performance Worth Watching: There’s nothing here to dispute Arnow’s bravery or Tafti’s performance (which came at the perfect time, which we’re about to wonder about). any In this movie, she’s adorable) and functions very naturally as the catalyst for Ann’s change.

Unforgettable Dialogue: Imagine all of this being said in such a dull way that it’s as if everyone had been run over by a roller:

Ann’s mother: I love you so much. More.

Anıl: I love you too.

Ann’s mother: You say that so sloppily.

Ann’s father (David Arnow): You say that like you’re holding your nose.

Sex and Skin: Explicitly graphic nudity, masturbation, oral sex, and many scenes featuring Arnow wearing an embarrassing peekaboo outfit, complete with ball gag and pig nose. I don’t know if any of this is “sexy” in the traditional movie sense, but at least it feels realistic.

Our View: It makes sense that Arnow also composed comics. Feeling… It generally has a single-panel pace and visual method, with long takes and static cameras. The narrative progresses like a series of stories, with no clear and obvious nod to the passage of time. And Ann’s flattened way of speaking and presenting herself is expressive and mimics the one-dimensional quality of line drawings. This is not to say that Ann and her experiences lack depth; silence, pauses, and minimal editing give us space to read, examine, and interpret, even as we only feel the invisible emotional barriers Ann creates around herself. it looks more like real life – in fact, the film is as subtly stylized as possible – and less like a conventional movie.

For a while I didn’t know what to make of this film, its seemingly joyless existence, its comedy that was rarely light and easy and often painful. (Don’t call it “embarrassing”; it’s insightful, not shocking. I also laughed a lot, probably to break the tension.) By the end, I felt Ann’s understated, uneven, escalating, and perhaps unwitting search for wholeness as a whole. the sense of agency within the person and their sexuality. There’s no awkward embarrassment here; Even in Ann’s most humiliating moments, we never feel like she’s not in control. The final scene also seemed to coalesce into a theme that underlines the cyclical nature of our actions and suggests that cycles don’t always have to be broken, but perhaps gradually subverted until they turn in our favor.

Our call: TURN ON STREAM. It’s a fascinating movie. Funny, quite unusual for the most deadly blindness fans. I feel like it would be a brand new experience if I watched it again. This is a rare thing.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.