Molli And Max In The Future

In the future, people will still be people, right? Actually, there are plenty of good reasons to think otherwise, but that’s the premise of Michael Lukk Litwak’s gently paced science fiction comedy, which screened as part of SXSW 2023. It follows the titular Molli (Zosia Mamet) and Max (Aristotle Athari) over a number of years as they meet, part ways, meet again, and so on, gradually recognising that there’s something important between them but repeatedly failing to do anything about it.

It’s a cartoonish future which borrows imagery from the likes of Blade Runner and Minority Report, letting us see the future in little snippets which are neither expensive to shoot nor overly distracting, the idea being that what we might find wondrous is really just wallpaper to two self-obsessed but still likeable characters whose concerns are not so different from our own. When we first encounter them – after a traffic collision requires Molli to give Max a ride – she’s seeking spiritual enlightenment and he’s trying to build a career as a mech fighter. Neither finds satisfaction where they thought they would and we find out what they’ve been up to through a series of heavily expository conversations which the film gets away with due to the chemistry between the actors and the weight of the subtext.

Details of the wider universe are teased out in the background as we learn about Max’s frustration with having to do promo work and Molli’s awkward relationship with a demigod who turns out to have other chosen ones on the side. There has been a genocide in the not-so-distant past and Max, who is part fish person, still doesn’t have the right to vote. This and other inequities complicate a story in which galactic politics is increasingly going off the rails, with the pair trying to reassure each other that there’s no way that the candidate who has promised to eat everyone will actually get large numbers of votes. Game show elements are spoofed so successfully that they risk being as annoying as the real thing.

At times this veers dangerous close to being When Harry Met Sally in space, and it’s odd to see that currently declining ideas like marriage and jealously over mixed gender friendships are still around when so much else has changed, but for the most part the film is amiable enough to get away with it. It’s a slight thing but nicely delivered. Science fiction is often guilty of putting plot before character so it’s refreshing to encounter the reverse for a change, and for a small project, this is likely to have a big future.