[ad_1]
Learning how to live a “normal” life when you’re mentally ill typically means you develop strange quirks as coping mechanisms. Rituals, reminders, medication (prescribed and/or self-selected), and sensory tools can serve as a balm, but there’s always this nagging feeling that we’d give absolutely anything to be able to quiet our brains. For codependent millennial trainwreck besties Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) in Addison Heimann’s “Touch Me,” that relief comes in the form of wildly sexy “cross species intercourse” with a narcissistic alien named Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), whose addictive tentacle touch can cure humans of all pain.
Advertisement
Produced by David Lawson Jr., Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead of Rustic Films, the film opens with an extended monologue from Joey as she explains to a therapist how she met Brian and was quickly swept under his spell of wanting to save the environment with his CO2-absorbing trees, but fled his grasps after sex became a little too rough and wound up at Craig’s house, where she’s been living rent-free every since. When Brian reenters her life, she agrees to visit his extravagant home, but only if Craig is allowed to join her. They both know this is a bad idea, and despite the cult-vibes of his home and his suspiciously hostile assistant (Marlene), Joey and Craig allow themselves to be “dickmatized” by Brian’s euphoric touch despite the risk that it will ultimately destroy them.
Advertisement
“Touch Me” was recently awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Overlook Film Festival, a well-deserved honor but one that might confuse conventional minds who can’t wrap their heads around the genius of a psychosexual sci-fi horror comedy washed in rainbow lighting about a hostile throuple based in tentacle sex with an alien who has a penchant for wearing track suits and treats Hip-Hop 101 dance class choreography as meditation. But that’s precisely what makes “Touch Me” such a captivating watch.
Touch Me refuses to be boxed in by genre expectations
Addison Heimann unapologetically pours himself into his stories, with his debut feature “Hypochondriac” similarly tackling thorny topics with painful relatability. But where “Touch Me” differs is the rebellious streak coursing throughout the film’s tone, where touches of Gregg Araki and John Waters infest clear homages to the Spanish film “The Untamed,” ’80s hip-hop, and Japanese Pink films. It’s a film that fluctuates between laugh-out-loud visual gags, like a shower flooded with the contents of a backed-up sewer line or a fruit bowl filled with vapes, and hypnotic visuals of extreme color saturation to best highlight the shape of the corporeal form in the throes of absolute pleasure. But like the lush beauty of Brian’s home (and abs) and his generous gifts of beautiful gowns to wear before dinner are tools for manipulation, the humor and horniness are Heimann’s way of lulling the audience into a false sense of comfort as the darkness hangs overhead.
Advertisement
It’s easy to laugh at Brian as he gyrates his body like the star pupil of Dena Rizzo, stabs himself with powdered lemonade mix to prove he has a weakness, and forces everyone to traumadump to a crystal while he grows copies of himself in the roots of growing trees — but he’s still an alien with the capability of fornicating so hard it literally makes a person’s head explode. Joey and Craig are easy to write off as codependent disasters trapped in the arrested development prison of their own making, but they’re also both people who we learn have survived unimaginable traumatic events and just happen to really, really suck at processing the pain harbored in their bodies. This makes them vulnerable to a parasite like Brian, and the combination of the trio is cataclysmic. Instead of forcing us to choose one lens through which to view all of these characters, “Touch Me” gives the audience a softcore kaleidoscope.
Advertisement
Touch Me is the perfect movie for The Now
There’s an unfortunate trend bubbling up in the cinematic space these days where movies are being made by committee, and data-churning algorithms are being looked at for guidance, because trusting human instinct has become too “financially risky.” The result is an inescapable feeling of homogenization that is slowly dissolving what makes the moviegoing experience great, leaving behind a hollowed-out husk of what made us fall in love with film in the first place. It’s more important than ever to seek out inventive, original stories that refuse to be boxed in by genre conventions, if only to send a message to the powers that be that audiences hunger for more than just well-worn IP.
Advertisement
But it also benefits us as consumers to feast upon intimately chaotic works like “Touch Me” that offer us new avenues to process our own struggles with feeling human in a world that’s increasingly making us all feel alien. I’m sure there will be those who argue that “Touch Me” is trying to bite off more than it can chew at times, but I see that as a feature and not a bug. We’re all biting off more than we can chew all the time, as we’re inundated with the increasing pressures of surviving the hellscape that is our current reality while managing our own obligations and trying not to be crushed by the weight of our past traumas. We are, like this movie, trying to win 50 battles at once and throwing out self-deprecating one-liners in the hopes that no one can see how much we’re struggling to get through it all.
Advertisement
We’d deny it if asked, but the truth is that we’re all looking for our own version of tentacle sex that cures our trauma, so none of us have any room to question Heimann’s path to work through his own. Solana Token Creator
[ad_2]
