Vague Visages’ This Closeness review contains minor spoilers. Kit Zauhar’s 2023 movie features Zane Pais, Jessie Pinnick and herself. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

*

After making one of the most striking debuts in recent American cinema with Actual People (2021), writer-director Kit Zauhar returns with another uncomfortably honest examination of relationships and identity in This Closeness. While Actual People makes a personal statement about a pivotal life event (impending college graduation), This Closeness is more intimate and self-contained, taking place almost entirely in a single location, with only five onscreen characters.

This Closeness’ setting doesn’t make it any less insightful, though, and Zauhar once again proves herself a keen observer of sometimes shameful human behavior. She’s also talented at embodying flawed people, here playing passive-aggressive content creator Tessa, who travels to Philadelphia with her journalist boyfriend, Ben (Zane Pais), for his 10-year high school reunion. However, the event is left offscreen, since This Closeness essentially never leaves Tessa and Ben’s weekend Airbnb location.

This Closeness Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘The Humans’

In This Closeness, Tessa and Ben meet their Airbnb host, a socially awkward video editor named Adam (Ian Edlund), who occupies one bedroom in a small apartment. The initial set-up could come from a horror movie, as the protagonists discover that the person they booked the room with, Adam’s roommate Lance, is away indefinitely, and the manner in which Adam talks about him makes it sound like the guy in question might be fictional (a concept that Tess and Ben even briefly discuss). The truth is that Adam is just a weird guy, but Zauhar mines the discomfort for nervous laughter in This Closeness, forcing her characters into a series of fraught interactions.

This Closeness Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘The Courier’

This Closeness builds both its humor and emotional resonance from small conflicts and inconveniences, like the protracted effort to get Adam to remove an air conditioner from the guest bedroom, which he claims is there to counteract the heat, even in winter. Zauhar’s film isn’t a Larry David-style cringe comedy, though, as the writer-director show mores interest in human vulnerability. And while Tessa and Ben may find Adam off-putting, they’re also fascinated by him, revealing more about their true selves as This Closeness progresses.

This Closeness Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘Hit Man’

“The walls are thinner than I thought,” Ben says in This Closeness, far later than that realization should have come to him. Tessa and Pais’ protagonists are remarkably free with their complaints about Adam and their fights with each other, considering that Edlund’s character is almost always just in the next room, able to hear everything they say. It’s a testament to Tessa and Ben’s solipsism that Adam is often only relevant when he impacts the increasingly dysfunctional dynamics of their relationship.

This Closeness Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Anyone But You’

Ben can come off as inconsiderate and manipulative in This Closeness, especially through his denials that there’s anything untoward in his connection with his high school friend Lizzy (Jessie Pinnick), whom he brings back to the apartment after drunken nights out with friends while Tessa stays behind. Ben is just as passive-aggressive as Zauhar’s character, evidenced by his obvious resentment of her YouTube success, his insecurity over her attractiveness to other men and his fetishization of her mixed-race identity — something that Ben projects onto Adam.

This Closeness Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘The Adam Project’

As for Tessa, she clearly understands the potentially sexual nature of the ASMR videos she creates, both when she enlists Lizzy as a guest star and when she demonstrates her techniques to Adam in private. Sexual frankness is one of the main qualities that connects Zauhar to mumblecore filmmakers like Joe Swanberg, even if she prefers not to use the subgenre label. Even more so than Actual People, This Closeness owes a lot to Swanberg movies like Nights and Weekends (2008) and Art History (2011), dealing with the messiness of close-quarters interaction and the blurred lines between the personal and the creative.

This Closeness Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Eileen’

Zauhar is far more than a mumblecore acolyte, though, and there’s a clarity to her work that contrasts with the chaotic improvisation of early subgenre films. Every encounter in This Closeness opens the characters up more while delivering dry comedy and sometime startlingly raw emotion. The cast members provide naturalistic performances that give the film a voyeuristic feel, enhanced by the director’s clear, minimalist visual style. 

This Closeness Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘3 Body Problem’

There are no showy camera set-ups in This Closeness, but Kayla Hoff’s cinematography provides a direct window into the characters’ behavior. The visuals work closely with the intricate sound design, which often mimics the hushed tones of Tessa’s ASMR videos, making each small movement sound like it’s happening right next to the viewer. The movie’s title refers to how close Zauhar brings the audience to the characters, in addition to how close they are to each other.

This Closeness Review: Related — Soundtracks of Television: ‘3 Body Problem’

Intimate interactions can be hard to bear, and while This Closeness may make some viewers squirm, the film is never unpleasant to watch. As in Actual People, Zauhar gets to the heart of her characters’ deepest fears and desires, in a way that’s disarmingly funny and painfully relatable.

Josh Bell (@signalbleed) is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He’s the former film editor of Las Vegas Weekly and has written about movies and pop culture for Syfy Wire, Polygon, CBR, Film Racket, Observer and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.

This Closeness Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘Fear Street: Part Two – 1978’