Daniels are on a roll. The writing/directing duo of Dan Kwan and Daniel Sheinert has the broken wind of Swiss Army Man at their backs, they just launched a fantastically bizarre Nike commercial for the Olympics, and they have a clever short film online that displays a single conversation with infinite lives.
Possibilia is impossible to review because it’s going to be different every time. A Choose Your Own Adventure style short, it asks you to become the editor, to cut clips in real time as indie darlings Alex Karpovsky and Zoe Jarman attempt to break off a four-year-long relationship. You decide whether they grumble at the kitchen table, take their fight to the front yard or desperately make out on top of the washing machine.
Of course, true to the ebullient, transitory nature of the piece, you have to edit on the fly without a road map. “If you want them to stay together, turn to pg. 69,” doesn’t handily pop up to guide you toward the sunny-side-up ending you may want; Possibilia successfully mirrors life, where you have total freedom to make choices and almost zero control over what’s going to happen.
It’s an aching illusion that tops off a fantastically imaginative bit of intimate theater. Karpovsky and Jarman are unsurprisingly great as the twee couple on the verge of disaster, and, yes, a Noah Baumbachian stylized gloss on their conversation makes it ten times more polished than any real-life argument, but it’s still easy to get lost in the moment as an unusually powerful fly on the wall. Grab some pop-popcorn and watch/influence it on Eko.
Featured Image: Eko/Daniels