★★★★
The funniest film of the year, Brandon Daley’s $POSITIONS is an anxious Midwestern descent into tragicomic crypto obsession. It plays like a trailer-park Uncut Gems, following the cover-your-eyes nightmare spiral of a blue-collar schmuck with big dreams but little impulse control.
Mike Alvarado (Michael Kunicki) is an optimistically -minded Midwestern schlub who throws himself – and his family’s savings – into the online trading of volatile meme coins. When he gains a cool $25k, he responds sensibly – quitting his job and asking his girlfriend Charlene (Kaylyn Carter) for an open relationship. But initial wins turn into catastrophic losses, and within 24 hours his finances are effectively destroyed. There’s only one thing left to do – double down. $POSITIONS shows us a world of psychological whiplash: one moment Mike is dancing through a parking lot, the next he’s negotiating debts, drinking piss to impress strangers, and alienating the only people who love him.
Under the assured comedic direction of Brandon Daley, Kunicki inhabits the part with jittery ferocity: charming when he’s winning, regressive when things turn sour, staring bug-eyed at disastrous trading updates while people are desperately trying to talk to him. He’s always on the edge of breaking, and often still halfway in love with the idea he can pull himself out by the next big play – all of which gives the film the most anxiety-inducing aura since the last Safdie picture.
The supporting roles – his brother Vinny (Vinny Kress), who has Down’s Syndrome; his recovering-addict cousin Travis (Trevor Dawkins); and his long-suffering partner – are all excellently played, and none of them are window dressing. Like Mike, they get plenty of gags, and like Mike their stakes are real. Their own grief sometimes bursts through unfiltered, and our attachment to them only deepens the tragicomedy of Mike’s spiralling collapse.
Visually, the film leans sparse. Grainy textures, hung-over diners, and starkly-lit bare wood panelling all underscore Mike’s existential slide. The humor and horror are two sides of the same crypto-coin – the more absurd things get, the funnier and more nightmarish his predicament becomes. A joke at a party bombs; he reinvests. His girlfriend takes a new lover; he sinks in everything he’s got. As the money ebbs, flows, and starts to disappear, his eyes bulge with unfettered mania.
The final act brings together all the loose anxieties into a violent crescendo that you half want to look away from, half want to lean into. As Mike just keeps on digging, $POSITIONS has us yelling at him – even as it suggests that salvation is possible, just not on the end of a crypto scam.
$POSITIONS is the funniest film of the year – and one of the saddest and most tender. Recommended.
$POSITIONS played at the Fantasia International Film Festival.
Whitlock&Pope 