LEMON

Cringe comedy rarely gets cringier or weirder than in Lemon, one of this year's buzz films from the cutting-edge Sundance Next program.

Short-film phenom Janicza Bravo marks herself out as a talent to watch with her wry and abrasive feature film debut. An avant-garde comedy of manners, where the manners in question are the basic minimum requirements of human decency, Lemon is biting, pungent and defiantly eccentric as it barrels straight to the heart of human alienation.

Ruthlessly self-centred Isaac (Brett Gelman, Bravo's husband and co-writer) is an acting teacher of solipsistic arrogance and negligible skill. Split between his disdain for his blind girlfriend Ramona (Judy Greer) and an odd infatuation with a new student named Alex (Michael Cera), Isaac baffles and bungles his way through the world, leaving behind a trail of broken dreams, bitter resentments and surrealist set-pieces that will stretch the very boundaries of what you consider comedy.

'Lemon breathes new life into an ancient concept: a man who is dumb and also white … an instant classic.' – RogerEbert.com