Superbuhei

The psychic distortions of loneliness, alienation, and paranoia—and the Freudian existential terror of encountering one’s doppelgänger—are active ingredients in the mordant first feature from Josef Brandl, an accomplished art director and set designer who’s helped shape the evocative visual language in films by Wes Anderson and Steven Spielberg. Jesse (Oliver Korittke), a gloomy recovering alcoholic, spends monotonous days managing the in-store bar at a drab suburban supermarket, and gloomy nights at home with his cashier wife, whose patience for Jesse’s morose outlook has long since run thin. It’s unclear to her whether he’s sliding into a relapse or merely going insane when he begins to suspect that he’s being stalked by his own evil twin brother, whom he’s convinced is dead-set on assuming Jesse’s identity and taking over his life. With this premise, Brandl brews a heady, destabilizing concoction of uncanny horror and bone-dry humor to depict a man on the brink, whose demons—whether real or imagined—just might be catching up with him.