Arguably the most biggest runaway success out of Fantastic Fest this year was Christopher Winterbauer’s coming-of-age-dystopian-comedy Wyrm. With a Yorgos Lanthimos directing Napoleon Dynamite aesthetic Winterbauer’s film is funny, strange and most importantly relatable.
If not for societies focus on loneliness being monitors by shock collars on every teen until they achieve their first kiss you could easily just think the film is a period piece in the 80’s. The clothing, the music and the focus of cassette tapes all pull us back to 2010’s favorite nostalgia decade.
When you step away from the 80’s style and the shock collars what you’re left with is a beautiful and relatable story of growing up, loss and love. Our titular character Wyrm is the only person in his grade who still has his collar symbolizing his failure at finding love. The school board is understanding to his “developmental hold-up” given a car accident that killed his owner brother and put a classmate in a wheelchair but the student body still finds him strange.
While navigating high school and searching for his first love Wyrm fills a lot of his time recording his classmates memories of his brother so he can properly pay tribute to him. At this time I’m sure everyone reading this review is expecting a depressing film but Winterbauer skillfully navigates through these heavy themes with a fantastic dry humor that made this a true stand out film that will have a huge fanbase when it’s made available to wider audiences.
Below is my interview with the director at the film festival: