"Molli and Max in the Future" is a romantic comedy that takes place in a cartoonish universe where magic is real, giant mecha robot fighting is a popular sport, and people can travel between planets and dimensions regularly. Demons, gods, and fish people are a part of everyday life, and there are all kinds of technologies that can do amazing things - like have doubles of yourself live out big choices for you in another dimension and accelerated timeline, and report back how things went before you make your own decision. If you've been keeping up with pop culture for the last decade or so, you'll recognize many familiar tropes from genre media like "Rick and Morty." However, the patterns of human interaction - specifically romance - are pretty much the same as they always were.
So Molli (Zosia Mamet) is a space witch cruising around looking for magic crystals one day when she accidentally runs across Max (Aristotle Athari), an up-and-coming mecha creator and pilot. The two hit it off, but their lives are headed in different directions, so they decide to part ways. Molli ends up in a sex cult fighting an intergalactic war for a while. Max gains fame and fortune as a giant robot brawler. They meet again many years later, in very different circumstances, but still aren't sure about their feelings. Their paths keep intersecting and their lives go through some major changes. As the universe heads toward a major crisis, will Molli and Max finally figure out that they're perfect for each other?
You might be wondering how a very low budget indie movie, directed and written by first timer Michael Lukk Litwak, would be able to realize all of these complicated concepts and ideas. Well, the short answer is, that everything is green screened and kitschy as hell. The whole production looks like it was put together by a group of enthusiastic amateurs with a limited wig budget and a lot of free effects programs. However, everyone involved clearly put a lot of effort into the film, and the DIY aesthetic is deliberate and pretty charming. This absolutely looks like a student project you might have stumbled across on Youtube at some point in the last decade. Halfway through the movie, however, I was absorbed in the story to the point where I was able to take everything at face value, ludicrous as a lot of it was.
Because despite all the sci-fi silliness, Molli and Max's romance works. In interviews, Litwak has cited "When Harry Met Sally…" as a major inspiration, except he wanted to update the dynamics for 2024. His hyper-verbose lovebirds are kept apart by the usual doubts about self-worth, compatibility, and life experience. However, they also face a lot of more contemporary existential dread together. There's a major subplot with a Trump stand-in, a trashy demon fella named Turboschmuk (Michael Chernus), who is probably going to destroy the universe and kill everyone in it. The commentary on current events is the weakest part of the movie, but it does get a few good laughs, including a priceless pandemic joke.
Mamet and Athari are a little awkward at times, but fun to watch. They both pull off the trick of being able to talk completely sincerely about totally absurd subjects, and will have you believing that they've survived relationships with selfish half-demons and possessive AI. The dialogue is smartly written, often parodying the melodramatic and stylistic excesses of recent genre media, but also coming across as emotionally genuine. There are also a lot of clever little science-fiction concepts used to work around budget limitations and narrative dead space. For instance, after a long separation, Molli and Max fill each other in on what they've been doing via a dining option that also lets them watch each other's flashbacks.
It's always fascinating to watch the cinema of a new generation emerge, and "Molli and Max" feels very much like something steeped in the online culture of Millennials and Gen Z, with the breathless rhythms of Adult Swim cartoons and Tik Tok memes. It's perfectly at home with concepts that the older generations would call geeky, but the search for love remains as difficult as ever. And screen romances of any kind are so rare these days that it's very comforting to discover that the fundamentals still apply as time goes by. "Molli and Max" isn't a great movie, but it's the right movie for a certain audience, and I'm glad that it exists.
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