Vengeance

Showtimes August 26 - September 1:

The first feature written and directed by B.J. Novak (best known for his role on “The Office,” where he also served as a writer, producer, and director), Vengeance is a comic riff on blue state/red state values that gradually evolves into something larger – a meditation on how the two sides of America are working, nearly in tandem, to tear the country apart.

The story centers on Ben Manalowitz, an acerbic New Yorker who gets called down to Texas to investigate the death of one of his ex-lovers, Abby. A thumbnail portrait of the new generation of writer careerists whose idealism is dunked in opportunism, Ben decides to make a podcast about the girl’s death, which her brother believes to have been a murder. “I will find this person,” he tells her family, “or this generalized societal force. And I will define it.” As the film turns into the story of an East Coast creative telling a tale of backwoods locals, Ben’s own blindness becomes central to their story. Abby’s family members may live in small town Texas, but that doesn’t mean they’re dumb, or unworldly, or not plugged into the currents of urban technology. They’re characters who keep surprising us. As do the locals, including a record executive living in Marfa, who’s played with charisma by Ashton Kutcher. A heady, jaunty, witty-as-they-come tale that’s just grounded in the real world enough to carry you along, Vengeance is wide awake, sharp edged, and held together by a vision – of loss, ambition, addiction, conspiracy theory, and how we’re all victims of the contemporary image culture.

(US / 2022 / Directed by B.J. Novak)
R / 1 hr 48 mins