Exactly the kind of punishing, hermetically sealed science-fiction stoner freakout flick I’d be in the bag for, yet I Have No Mouth And I Must Sing fails to conjure up that oddly hypnotic ‘heart of darkness’ existential dread that Oppenheimer’s previous films probed so well, and it’s such a shame to see him whiff it after Zone of Interest drew upon his work so clearly and so successfully in fiction form.

Those aforementioned films offered up a salient argument for a startling idea: perhaps the long arc of human nature doesn’t bend towards good, but rather, our race’s curse of intellect allows us to self-deceive in ways other animals can’t, and thus, we are the origin of evil.

It’s an idea that’s so upsetting, one can’t help but peer over the edge, daring to see just how deep the poisoned well goes, if it really can be possible that we, not our circumstances, are responsible for the unspeakable horrors humanity continues to inflict on the world.

Anyway, none of that is really here, but it’s nice to imagine how good this could have been! The characters are one-note in a way that I’m sure Oppenheimer would wave away by saying that they’re Arendt-ing themselves into cliche fearing the complexity of their failure, but there’s not enough here to suggest the deeper waters murmuring under the surface. It’s not terribly atmospheric (Glazer, again, would have killed this), the performances are mostly middling, and worst of all, the film can’t decide if the songs should be chipper extensions of the characters’ self-deceit or Dancer In The Dark styled escapes from suffocating dread.

This all being said, Moses Ingram is really fantastic, often managing to overcome thin material that even Tilda Swinton couldn’t rise above, and this was a thrilling introduction to a true talent whom I hope to see in better work soon.