Director: Michael Lukk Litwak
Writer: Michael Lukk Litwak
Stars: Zosia Mamet, Aristotle Athari, Erin Darke
Synopsis: A sci-fi romantic comedy about a man and woman whose orbits repeatedly collide over the course of 12 years, 4 planets, 3 dimensions, and one space-cult.
Take a lot of When Harry Met Sally and a bit of His Girl Friday and set it in a retro-futuristic world filled with post and present millennial angst and you have some idea what Michael Lukk Litwak’s Molli and Max in the Future is doing. An intergalactic rom-com space opera and social satire with its heart firmly on its virtual and real sleeve.
It’s “The Future” and Molli (Zosia Mamet) meets Max (Aristotle Athari) when their spaceships collide. He’s piloting his own “custom model” ship and she’s driving her Honda Civic of spaceships. He has no insurance, and she shouldn’t have been out there trying to harvest magic crystals. The meet-cute formula is absolutely as familiar as it should be. First, they are annoyed with each other. Then, they grudgingly become friends. That friendship becomes essential to both of them. But somehow, they never manage to turn the romance into a romance because their lives continually diverge. And yet, Molli, our earnest and sometimes naïve heroine constantly finds Max, our cynical and also naïve hero, and reunite over the years.
Molli and Max are quite literally from two different worlds. She’s from Megalopolis, the bustling NYC styled planet, and he’s from Oceanus – a place where the persecuted “Fish People” live and work in the mines. Max wants to escape the family business of the Rock factory (not exactly what you’d think it is, but a delightful reveal) and become a Mecha fighter. Molli wants to save the universe through interdimensional healing and worshipping the Gods in a battle between the Passionaughts and Conformsteins. He’s the aspirational working class to her new-age activist.
When they next meet it’s in a cab. Max, now MAKS, is a star in the Mecha world and is promoting Glorp Soda. He’s dating MAR14 (a sentient program he created, played with verve by Erin Darke) who can spin anything. Molli is becoming a space witch in the very obvious sex cult run by Moebius (Okieriete Onaodowan). How are they doing? Fine, thank you very much… and don’t even question it. Of course, they do question each other which leads to some home truths landing eventually when they meet again, and she has left the Passionaughts and he has been widely cancelled after selling out to the corporate overlords.
Life didn’t work out as either Molli and Max expected, and they are constantly having to re-invent themselves. What they do have, ostensibly, is each other. Molli gets involved with the dull and pliable ex-cult member, Walter (Arturo Castro) who she thinks she can change. Max has a relationship with Cassie (Paloma Garcia-Lee) a “modded” human who is consistently connected to every digital platform and doesn’t have a clue what she should be doing with any of the information.
Add to this mental health issues, menial jobs, toxic poisoning, dating apps, impending global doom via Turboschmuck (Michael Chernus) a Trumpian demon from the trash dimension who wants to commit genocide. Plus, angry pong playing as therapy while being dressed in outfits inspired by TRON and everyone just sleepwalking because Cheese Corp is keeping them in a Baudrillardian nightmare. Oh, and an Escher inspired dimension where Max becomes Schrödinger’s cat.
Molli and Max in the Future was filmed entirely against green screens and uses both digital and practical effects (gorgeous handmade models, repurposed obsolete tech). The 8- and 64-bit arcade game aesthetic melding into gloopy hand-crafted sex tentacles. There isn’t a trick that Lukk Litwak and his frantically inventive crew don’t try. From the make-up by Sara Plata, to the production design by Violet Overn, through to the cinematography by Zach Stoltzfus – every piece of the film is assembled to match the sensibility of the script.
“Love is the answer to everything” is one line we are fed consistently through our lives. It really isn’t. Even the Goddess of Love herself, Triangulon (Grace Kuhlenschmidt), is befuddled by what people do in her name. She’s also a bit of a bitch. Every decision that Molli and Max make have both potential cosmic repercussions and make not one iota of difference to anyone’s lives. The galaxy will be sucked into a black hole, maybe. Entropy might be the default setting of everything, maybe. Late-stage Capitalism exists in any configuration human beings come up with (Fish People, too).
Michael Lukk Litwak knows everyone is tired and stressed. People overlook the very thing in front of them because they’re scared to confront what they feel deeply. Distraction is panacea and hope is vestigial. Molli and Max in the Future features excellent comic talents. Matteo Lane and Aparna Nancherla have parts, of course Aristotle Athari is an SNL alum, and Zosia Mamet starred in Girls and dozens of other touchstone film and television comedies. Combing the performances with a devotion to both the science fiction and romantic comedy genres generates sincerity via the surreal.
Molli and Max in the Future is charming from its opening moments all the way to the brilliantly conceived ending which speaks to the circular nature of how the parts of ourselves we think we dispose of can be the very things that save us. The film is precisely the kind of energetic shove some audiences require to imagine just slowing down for a bit. Love is about choosing to embrace your messy self so you can choose what you deserve in life. Choose Molli and Max. Down with Turboschmuck!
