This assessment is predicated on a screening on the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
Movies about folks getting sucked into video video games have been round practically so long as video video games themselves, however none have had as a lot wondrous lo-fi appeal as OBEX. While the likes of Tron and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle don’t perceive video games effectively sufficient to totally make good on their alluring premises, author/director/star Albert Birney’s scrappy take will get all of it proper. Initially enjoying as one thing much less like Steven Spielberg’s so-so adaptation of Ready Player One and extra like Joel Potrykus’ riveting Relaxer, OBEX’s concentrate on a lonely homebody quickly widens to seize a fantasy online game world that’s as infinitely foolish as it’s subtly spectacular. Shot fully in stunning black and white by cinematographer and co-writer Pete Ohs, it’s a gem of a film with an intimate, but nonetheless playful, understanding of what attracts us into video games within the first place.
It all begins in humble, haunting, and humorous vogue. The yr is 1987, and Conor (Birney) spends most of his days in solitude, with solely his cute canine, Sandy, for firm. The daybreak of the business web is just a few years off, however Conor’s world remains to be dominated by screens: He wakes up within the morning and instantly begins watching his televisions (sure, plural – three stacked on prime of one another), which leads to loads of unexpectedly humorous, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them interactions between the units as he alters channels. He briefly talks to the neighbor who will get his groceries, watches late night time horror films like A Nightmare on Elm Street alone with Sandy, and makes portraits for folks by meticulously typing out a collection of symbols on a rudimentary phrase processor. Excellent sound design immerses us within the chirping cicadas and clacking keyboards that make up the rhythms of Conor’s little life – that’s, till he will get a brand new pc recreation: OBEX. This proves to be a monumental choice.
Much of OBEX’s 90 minutes depict Conor going via the motions – it takes a bit of bit for him to be transported to an 8-bit realm. The movie drags a bit to start with, making its second half stronger by comparability. But it doesn’t really feel like Birney is stalling; these early scenes assist set up that his character is looking for one thing. Throw in some easy but strikingly realized dream sequences during which Conor drives down a desolate highway along with his mom and we begin to really feel a better sense of unhappiness amid the ample, lighthearted prospers. It’s solely pure that he would give himself over to OBEX after Sandy, his solely actual buddy, seemingly disappears into it.
Much as he did within the equally ingenious Strawberry Mansion, Birney doesn’t spell issues out, as an alternative letting the extra slippery and surreal particulars wash over us. Once Conor finds himself in OBEX, he encounters many staples of classic video video games: There’s the caring character at a tavern who assists within the quest, a companion Conor must rescue earlier than persevering with on, and adversaries whose fantastical kinds wouldn’t appear misplaced within the kindgom of Hyrule. But these characters are additionally reflections of our hero’s on a regular basis life: The companion is a person with an enormous TV for a head, a personality design whose gloomy undercurrent is difficult to shake. If the one individual Conor ever talks to is simply an embodiment of the TVs he has at dwelling, is he truly connecting with anybody? Is the sport only a translation of his goals and anxieties?
OBEX raises all these questions with out providing neat solutions to them, proving to be extra concerning the sensory and simple-yet-graceful wonders of its online game world. These embody one closing boss who’s at all times lurking within the shadows and a nightmarish sequence during which the sport (in addition to Conor’s world) begins to unravel, nearly sending the proceedings into full-blown horror territory. There’s no draw back to the unexplained particulars, since they’re supported by Birney’s palpable love for the subject material and the deeper, typically playfully poetic, emotional touches made doable by that care and sincerity. It’s only a man battling skeletons and demons looking for his canine, sure, but it surely’s additionally about discovering a method dwelling. What awaits him there, whether or not it’s extra loneliness or probably the possibility to step exterior his consolation zone, provides OBEX a real emotional throughline. Each step of the journey is a delight, pulling us deeper into the joyous creations of Birney and firm. It’s not solely one of the vital amusing online game films ever made – it’s additionally the one which cuts proper to the medium’s potential to replicate the attempting realities of our personal world whereas concurrently delivering us from them.
