282 - Lapsis

Eavesdropping at the Movies · Mar 21, 2021 · 21m

First-time writer-director Noah Hutton imagines, in Lapsis, a near-future gig economy dystopia that isn't that different from our own. Unable to pay for his brother's healthcare, Dean Imperial's Ray takes on contracting work for a Google-esque tech giant, hiking through forests laying cables. Imperial's performance is a standout, his Ray always sympathetic and legible, and Hutton's sketchy, piecemeal world-building suits the film - until it doesn't. Lapsis creates a recognisable milieu and has a leftist politics with which we broadly agree and are happy to see, but as its story develops it…