Summary

Stress Positions is a pandemic comedy that captures the chaotic energy of quarantine with accurate and relatable depictions. The main character, Terry, is a neurotic and high-strung individual navigating his relationships and boundaries during lockdown. The film explores existential crises and skewers issues of gender, race, and sexuality from a jaded millennial perspective.

John Early and Theda Hammel’s Stress Positions may be the first truly hysterical pandemic comedy. Many films and shows centered on the pandemic have earnestly leaned into the tragedy of the 2020 lockdowns, while others, like Netflix’s The Bubble, were hollow jabs at a real-life crisis. Either way, many of these shows came too soon. It’s unclear if Stress Positions has arrived “too soon” but its proximity to the pandemic doesn’t make it any less hysterical, even if it’s hollow in other areas.

Stress Positions is a comedy film directed by Theda Hammel and initially premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. When Terry is forced into quarantine at his former husband’s home, he is left caring for his nephew, a popular nineteen-year-old model, bringing unwanted attention his way. ProsStress Positions is one of the funniest pandemic films out there The film is incredibly relatable ConsStress Positions can be hollow in some areas The film might have come too soon after the pandemic

Early stars as Terry Goon, a New Yorker living in his soon-to-be-ex-husband Leo’s dilapidated brownstone. Stuffed in the basement is his nephew Bahlul (Qaher Harhash), incapacitated by a severely broken leg. A third resident, Coco (Rebecca F. Wright) lives on the third floor, but Terry sprays the air with RAID and Lysol every time she is forced to interact with his quarantine pod.

Stress Positions Captures The Chaotic Energy Of Quarantine
Told through voiceover, Karla, played by writer-director Hammel, Stress Positions depicts quarantine in a way that may almost be tough to watch given how accurate it is. From stepping outside and making noise at certain times during the day to the endless Grubhub deliveries that are sprayed down, wiped down, and carefully laid out on the counter before being eaten, it’s an all-too-real depiction.

Early vacillates between high-strung neuroses and dissociation with ease and, on top of that, his physical comedy is a sight to behold as he stumbles around the brownstone.

Terry is about as neurotic as they come and will remind you of that person in your life who refused to see you — even from a distance — for the majority of the year. Unfortunately, the people in Terry’s life don’t care much about his boundaries. Karla, for one, is always barging in, keen to meet Terry’s model nephew Bahlul and to get away from her girlfriend with whom she shares an apartment. Early vacillates between high-strung neuroses and dissociation with ease and his physical comedy is a sight to behold as he stumbles around the brownstone.

Stress Positions Reaches For Something More With Its Comedy
While Terry and Karla navigate their own identities as post-2010s Brooklynites in a rapidly changing world, a group of equally interesting characters orbits around them. Bahlul is perhaps the most fascinating, as he has an existential crisis while living with Terry. He writes about his child — also told in voiceover — slowly revealing things about Terry and his relationship with Bahlul’s mom that make you see Early’s character in a different, more truthful light.

Through Bahlul, Karla, and other voiceovers, Stress Positions’ story is told in an intentionally disorienting way, underscoring the feeling of listlessness we all felt in the early summer months of 2020. It’s an effective formal exercise that leads to some great comedy as the film skewers issues of gender, race, and sexuality from a decidedly millennial perspective, one so jaded that it can’t see beyond its reflection in the mirror. You may hate Terry, Karla, and those around them, but not as much as they hate themselves (and they’ll never let you forget that).

It’s through characters like Coco, Bahlul, and even Ronald (Faheem Ali, playing a food courier who gets wrapped in Karla and Terry’s web), that real freedom is found. Terry, Karla, and Leo will repeat the cycles we see them in, the cycles they themselves know they are repeating. But, in observing these cycles, Bahlul, Coco, Ronald, and maybe even us can break out of a jaded place to find something more authentic, even if it is as absurd as anything that happens in the film.

Stress Positions premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the US Dramatic Competition section.

Stress Positions Release Date January 18, 2024 Director Theda Hammel Cast John Roberts , John Early , Theda Hammel , Amy Zimmer Runtime 95 Minutes Writers Faheem Ali , Theda Hammel Studio(s) Seaview Productions Distributor(s) Neon