COMPETITION SCREENING

LIVING IN MISSOURI

W: Connor Ratliff/D: Shaun Peterson; with Connor Ratliff, Ian McConnel, Christina Puzzo. (90 min., video)

Living in Missouri functions as a bit of a reality check on the golden-lit, sharply dialogued suburban-alienation epics Hollywood has deployed to great success in recent years. Against a backdrop of massive junk food consumption, barely realized tchotchkes, and a uselessly lovely Midwestern autumn, first-time feature director Peterson and screenwriter/actor Ratliff catalog the breakdown of a marriage and a friendship that survives because it is too detached to fall apart. This is Middle American existentialism at its most naturalistic, full of Star Wars figures and underarticulated desire. 

             -- Cindy Widner 

             (10/12, 9:30pm, Driskill; 10/15, 9:15pm, Driskill)