Hulu and other services offer a romantic comedy with a light sci-fi touch.
Save Yourselves!
“Our individual lives are meaningless, if you think about it. But only if you think about it.” Su (Sunita Mani)
Save Yourselves! begins with a millennial couple who think deeply and often in cliches. Getting away from it all to find themselves and dealing with hostile aliens are just two of the genres the comic sci-fi throws out there with some wit and understatement. It’s a small indie with big themes and just as big a heart.
Sue (Sunita Mani) and Jack (John Reynolds), a millennial couple from Brooklyn (of course), head out to a remote cabin in upstate New York of course to let go of cells and the internet to get back to themselves. Typical of this low-key comedy, no domestic battle scenes intensify their need to change, nor do they seem bored with each other. They just need to get away.
Once in the cabin, the edges get frayed because being alone for a week can stress the best of relationships. Just when you thought writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson have settled their plot around sweetness and light, they introduce the world being invaded by toxic Star-Trek-like tribbles or pouffes whose weapons are bizarre but lethal. The furry ones’ addiction to ethanol is another comic touch that lampoons the left and the right at the same time.
And so it goes until our heroes go outside to vacate the premises being overtaken by the pouffe predators. What happens to the couple as they watch others being overtaken by the innocent-looking monsters allows the film to take a traditional turn toward the salvation of heroic Su and Jack.
While being amused at the self-centered shenanigans of the couple, we can see where the Twilight-Zone is taking shape, and that’s always welcome. In the end Save Yourselves! speaks eloquently about the need to communicate through love rather than violence.
Our heroes are so Brooklyn hip: “We didn’t want to do the whole mariachi thing ’cause it felt a little too much like appropriation.”
Here’s Prime’s contribution to relieving your pandemic blues—the jokes are benign and the pouffes don’t look so bad. Enjoy a light serving of satire while you also try to figure out what happens to everyone.
Save Yourselves
Directors: Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson
Screenplay: Fischer, Wilson
Cast: Sunita Mani, John Reynolds
Run Time: 1h 33m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com