Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. This month: The A.V. Club atones for its sins of omission, recommending the best movies of the year that we didn’t review.
See You Next Tuesday (2013)
Most of Drew Tobia’s debut feature consists of people insulting each other in incredibly offensive ways without any leavening cleverness or joy in invective; See You Next Tuesday gestures unsubtly towards a far more unmarketable title, an accurate indication of the movie’s sensibility. Brooklyn-bound Mona (Eleanore Pienta) is estranged from both her family and her workplace. As seemingly the only white employee at the supermarket and a walking symbol of gentrification, she’s constant sport for her checkout-line co-workers, who mercilessly tear into her clothing and demeanor. Masochistic levels of passivity, alternating with manic fits of jolliness, are one possible aftereffect of being raised by an alcoholic, abusive mother (Dana Eskelson), who’s gone sober but is still unbearable.
Mona’s co-workers’ anger is refracted in the relationship between her sister, Jordan (Molly Plunk), and Jordan’s black girlfriend, Sylve (Keisha Zollar). All Sylve, a bartender, asks—clearly and reasonably—is that Jordan not act like an ignorant asshole in her bar; ignoring explicit instructions, Jordan gets trashed in record time and drops the N-word. Her slurs, for which she expects a quick apology to suffice, are a different, more offensive externalization of the same trauma.
See You Next Tuesday is unrelenting, its provocations instigated by two sisters taking turns as belligerent firestarters. Bracingly committed to abrasion, the film finds new situations to heighten to hysteria. The familial plotline collapses in a coda meant to provide a hint of reconciliation for mother and daughters—an impulse towards generosity that comes off begrudging and unconvincing. Tuesday is better when making viewers squirm, watching a dysfunctional trio flail against the world while amplifying the discomfort often left politely unarticulated in discussions about gentrification and privilege.
Availability: See You Next Tuesday is available on DVD, which can be obtained from your local video store or library, or to rent or purchase from the major digital services.
The NSFW trailer: