Rating: NR | Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: June 7th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Factory 25
Director(s): Kit Zauhar
Writer(s): Kit Zauhar

It looks different than the pictures. Sadder.

Ben (Zane Pais) and Tessa (Kit Zauhar) have arrived in Philadelphia to attend the former’s high school reunion. Deciding to forego a hotel, the couple has booked an Airbnb with a host in Adam (Ian Edlund). It’s a scenario ripe for awkwardness due to the nature of staying with a stranger, but also because of who Ben and Tessa are as human beings. You know things are balancing on a tightrope with them the moment she makes an innocuous comment about Ben going out with friends sans “spouses” and he decides to pedantically point out that she isn’t his spouse. Suddenly it’s very clear that whatever love they believe they possess can’t prove immune to the so-called “misunderstandings” to come.

Written and directed by Zauhar, This Closeness unfolds as a dialogue-heavy look into the jealousies and cruelties that exist within us regardless of any experiences that should, on paper, make us more empathetic to the plight of others. We soon learn via an interaction that cannot help but spiral out-of-control (Ben bringing an old friend in Jessie Pinnick’s Lizzy to the apartment for beers) that neither of these two had a perfect adolescence. They were bullied teens with bad skin and/or racist classmates, but they’ve come out the other end. That success has made Ben vindictive in a desire to flaunt it with those he hasn’t been able to leave behind and Tessa above it in a way that has her erasing it from existence.

This dynamic, despite similar endgames, drives a wedge between them with Ben thinking Tessa sees him as being immature and Tessa thinking that Ben sees her as being too good for the “little people” from her past. It has him wanting to flirt with Lizzy now that he has the confidence to do so and her wanting to be mean to Lizzy now that she possesses the same. And caught in the middle of this continual quest for power lies Adam’s introverted host/prisoner-in-his-own-home so as not to disturb his paying guests. They pity him one second and laugh at him the next. He becomes a mirror onto Ben’s youth to despise (like he despised himself) and one for Tessa to want to embrace (because no one did so for her).

Neither reaction is healthy. But neither is Ben and Tessa’s relationship once pettiness and frustrations rear their head to allow the truth a chance to reveal how much they dislike each other—not that they’re strong enough or secure enough to admit it. The film becomes an unintentional pissing contest between the two to see how far they can go in hurting the other without actually suffering any consequences. I say “unintentional” from their perspective—not the film’s—since they’re both too selfish to ever consider the other’s pain above their own pleasure. That pleasure simply always has the side effect of increasing that pain. And the only thing they can both agree on? How much better they are than Adam.

It’s a lo-fi indie with a DIY, single-setting aesthetic that allows the conversations and interactions to shine above everything else. Add the thin walls forcing Adam to always endure Ben and Tessa’s wrath and pleasure while also showcasing the couple’s hypocrisy when their host dares to turn the tables and Zauhar really plays up the “game” aspect of finding and, subsequently, crossing every line possible. The result won’t be for everyone and it might not prove to be as deep as the subject matter demands (or the film believes it reached), but there’s still a lot to like in this journey of two horrible people reminding a third that, despite his insecurities making him believe he’s destined for loneliness, at least he isn’t as desperate to trick himself into thinking the opposite as them.

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Zane Pais and Kit Zauhar in THIS CLOSENESS; courtesy of Factory 25.