Full Phil

Wealthy American industrialist Philip Doom takes his daughter Madeleine on a luxury trip to Paris to mend their strained relationship. Quentin Dupieux, whose penchant for placing absurd, surreal scenarios within realistic settings has already yielded dazzling cinematic gems featuring talking objects or a murderous car tire, transforms this father-daughter drama into an offbeat blend of relationship comedy and 1950s horror pastiche. At their luxury Parisian hotel, father and daughter indulge in a love-hate dynamic where neither yields to the other in terms of sheer nastiness. Amidst French cuisine, an intrusive hotel employee, and an old B-movie horror flick playing in the background, a wickedly dark vignette unfolds, until by and by a strange metamorphosis seems to reveal the deep, however latent bond, that actually exists between them. The more French haute cuisine delicacies the daughter stuffs into herself, the more the father is overcome by a sickening sense of bloated fullness. Woody Harrelson and Kristen Stewart carry off the nonsense with deadpan seriousness, navigating a story that juggles clichés with the uninhibited flair befitting the cosmos of this master of the absurd.