With Love and a Major Organ

I really did not expect to like this at all going in, but the premise, of people opting to remove their hearts to deal with the pain of living in the cold, numb world we all know so well, very quickly grabbed me and drew me in. It's strange to me that it is summarized as taking place in "an alternate world", when we can see the numbness and inhuman insanity it depicts all around us every day. The film ultimately feels a poor relation to great works on a similar theme, such as Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Her, Cold Souls and The Lobster, and reminds me also of the films of Miranda July. It doesn't ever really approach those heights, mostly because it doesn't explore or sustain any of the ideas it introduces in any real depth, and so ends up more like a bunch of half-thought-out intuitions thrown at the wall and somehow forming a pretty decent -if familiar - Black Mirror episode. For all that, it's still a good film, made with good intentions, very well-acted by all, and a welcome change from the soul-crushing pap we are expected to consume every other second of the day. 6.9/10.