Rating: NR | Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: August 8th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Cartuna / Irony Point
Director(s): Julian Glander
Writer(s): Julian Glander

Have a Grubby day!

It’s a week before New Year’s and Billy 5000 (Jack Corbett) finds himself at a crossroads. Who cares that he’s only a teen? A lot can happen in sixteen years. His mother has forgotten about him. He lives in his sister’s garage. He’s known by classmates as “The Human Calculator” and prone to getting so hyper-fixated on new topics that he’ll sacrifice health and hygiene to become an expert. And he’s recently dropped out of high school to follow the influencer buzzwords of Mr. Moolah (Demi Adejuyigbe) in pursuit of making a cool million.

Billy isn’t delusional, though. He’ll settle for five-grand right now to rent his own apartment and pay Gail (Eva Victor) back for her hospitality. And being the numbers man he is, a payment coding loophole in Grubster’s delivery app supplies the potential of getting him there before the big ball drops on January 1st. So, despite his friends still loafing about and scamming strangers on the streets of Florida, Billy is all about the delivery hustle. Whether dinners to wrong addresses, spaghetti through mail slots, or pre-masticated hot dogs … he’s your guy.

The brainchild of illustrator Julian Glander, Boys Go to Jupiter bills itself as a surreal coming of age story animated (via Blender) in his trademarked bubbly style—one that gave me déjà vu to Untitled Goose Game. It’s an apt description superficially, but don’t read too far into Billy’s finding a familiar trajectory to life lessons or major personal growth. At least not in the way you might think. We’re dealing with alien-like creatures that call to mind Biblical doomsday scripture and mythologized dolphin-people, after all. Billy’s yearning might be relatable, but the absurdity of his specific situation is unhinged.

That’s the Sunshine State for you, though. And Glander admits many of his set-pieces were inspired by his own exploits doing odd jobs for odd neighbors in the Tampa area. The characters Billy interacts with are a cross between Florida Man idiocy and “Twin Peaks” strangeness (an unsurprising fact if you’re familiar with the filmmaker’s “Jeopardy!” appearance). There’s the Old Slippy (Cole Escola) thinking the golf balls on her property are chicken eggs. Lonely hot dog vender Weenie (Chris Fleming) tooting his own product’s horn. And mini-golf heir Herschel Cretaceous (Joe Pera) complimenting strangers to fish for reciprocation.

Some characters are plausibly figments of others’ imagination (like Julio Torres’ Brontosaurus who, along with Torres’ Gas Station Guy, speaks in untranslated Spanish) while others contrast Billy’s plight (like Grace Kuhlenschmidt’s Freckles, Elsie Fisher’s Beatbox, and J.R. Phillips’ Peanut still acting their age despite losing their friend to the capitalist machine), but the main figures of note are an unlikely ally in Donut (a “theoretical circle creature”) and unlikely villain in juice titan Dr. Dolphin (Janeane Garofalo). How they connect is crucial to the one real theme Billy does face: integrity.

Add a worm-like creature named Glarba (Tavi Gevinson) with an insane, late-stage re-contextualization and reluctant Dr.-Dolphin-Jr. named Rozebud (Miya Folick) and you truly have zero clue where Glander will take you next. It might be to another satirical take on the post-capitalist grind, a fantastical musical interlude (yes, it’s a musical too) where Billy flies through the sky, or a disgustingly juvenile hazing ritual. Perhaps it’ll be a fetishistic customer requesting way too much for the money being offered, an experimental fruit that needs a common fruit to serve as its host, or a sing-along critique of Florida cuisine.

It’s easy to therefore forget these skit-like detours are tethered to a story until Billy stumbles back to it. Donut is more than just a bizarre pet. Insane rumors about Dr. Dolphin’s origins might not be so insane once Glander normalizes exactly how insane he’s made this world. And despite one obvious road for Billy to find maturity and fulfillment being inevitably born out of love, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t surprised about who provides the romance. That unpredictability is the real draw. Boys Go to Jupiter is a legitimately singular vision a la early Don Hertzfeldt that embraces its wave of unbridled chaos.

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A scene from BOYS GO TO JUPITER; courtesy of Cartuna and Irony Point.