Festival Darling ‘Molli and Max in the Future’ Deserves All Its Praise
When I heard about Molli and Max in the Future I was sold almost immediately. The pitch was When Harry Met Sally set in a Futurama-esque future and I am so thrilled to tell you that description is exactly right. Max and Molli meet when Molli hits him with her spaceship. While their relationship is rocky at first, they quickly grow to care about each other and we get to see their lives through its next several stages. (The film is divided into chapters, mostly skipping between the meetings of Max and Molli).
Their friendship survives cults, mecha fighting, virtual tennis games, and perhaps scariest of all: virtual dating. This movie has a lot of jokes coming at you from every level, from deft and subtle to bludgeoning and I’m sure I didn’t catch them all. The plot isn’t heavy but it doesn’t need to be, it’s about two people being thrown together over and over again in creative science fiction biomes and situations. Their relationship is the glue of this movie. The actors give largely excellent performances — both Zosia Mamet (Molli) and Aristotle Athrias (Max) are really able to convey the subtleties of growing up and their relationship feels real and deeply rooted. The ancillary characters do add to the world but mostly they support Molli and Max’s movie.
Not to say the science fiction aspects aren’t mightily impressive. This movie looks beautiful. It was majority shot on LED sound stages that give the whole film a really dreamy aesthetic that absolutely shimmers. There are stop motion sequences that look like if Wes Anderson directed Transformers and the costumes give everything from futuristic yoga retreat to Tron and beyond. The scene where they use a time machine cafe to deliver flashbacks was such a fun subversion of traditional tropes. The background aliens all add texture and depth to this series of worlds and the technology really walks the line of human hubris and imagination (especially the PUBoxes, I will be thinking about the implications of that for a long time).
There are actual moments of comedic brilliance, especially talking about Molli’s time with the Passionauts. The political satire has all the subtlety of a jackhammer but it doesn’t slow the movie down. Even in the chapters I considered slower I was still laughing and engaged. There are a few times that the science fiction elements do feel like set dressing for a very human story but at the end of the day I simply do not care. Science fiction is allowed to be fun and Molli and Max in the Future excels at fun.
I give Molli and Max in the Future (Level 33 Entertainment; NR movie release, TV-PG VOD; 1 hour, 34 minutes) a 4 out of 5.
Molli and Max in the Future is releasing in theaters nationwide February 9th 2024 and on demand on March 22nd, 2024.
