This rom-com brings futuristic absurdity and nimble timing to a comfort-food story line of friends turned soul mates.
Science fiction has become such a mainstay of lumbering franchises that it’s hard not to root for left-field small-scale twists on the genre like the fizzy, funny “Molli and Max in the Future.” Michael Lukk Litwak’s quantum-age rom-com brings futuristic absurdity and nimble timing to a tried-and-true story line of friends turned soul mates.
Molli (Zosia Mamet) and Max (Aristotle Athari) meet-cute when their spaceships collide near an asteroid field, and despite different outlooks — she’s hunting for crystals, he’s an aspiring mecha-fighter — they end up bonding for a while until Molli goes off on a quest. But in the movie’s next chapter, five years later, they cross paths by chance: Molli is now a “passionaut” in a bigamous cult led by a psychic floating head (Okieriete Onaodowan), and Max has legions of fans as a robo-gladiator and a relationship with his own bot (Erin Darke).
The space-age paraphernalia abound — interdimensional travel, digital pickleball, a gabby galactic goddess named Triangulon (Grace Kuhlenschmidt) — but Mamet and Athari take the ridiculousness in stride, which is also funnier. The thread of their on-again-off-again connection is never lost in the film’s pleasingly artisanal, jazz-scored futurescape, which meshes practical and digital effects under the sign of Douglas Adams as much as Adult Swim and anime.
Many of the complications for Molli and Max — like a trash-talking political candidate (Michael Chernus) whom the crowds eat up — echo the present day, and yet as the pair hit their requisite rom-com marks, it’s comforting to think of love as something still reliable in a sea of mind-boggling cosmic tumult.
Molli and Max in the Future
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
