{"id":28539,"date":"2025-01-28T23:45:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:50:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:50:38","slug":"sundance-film-festival-touch-me-is-a-weird-appealing-story-of-cross-species-attraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539","title":{"rendered":"Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">\u00a9Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are plenty of theories about the existence of extraterrestrial life, and theatrical first contact experiences like the one depicted in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Star Trek <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are hardly the only way in which humanity could become aware of them.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Touch Me<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> offers a truly unique method of undeniable confirmation for one human that aliens are in fact real when he watches a graphic sex tape of his roommate and a tentacled being, a curious but fitting introduction to a deeply committed, truly weird, and surprisingly resounding movie.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This film opens on Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) talking without any pauses to her therapist, explaining how she met a mysterious man named Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) wearing a tracksuit and coming to the logical conclusion that he must be an alien. By the end of her story, it\u2019s clear that he was indeed an alien, and in the course of their physical union, he, apparently unintentionally, hurt her. When literal feces come pouring out of the toilet in the home shared by Joey and her friend Chris (Jordan Gavaris), racking up a $10,000 repair bill, Joey makes the difficult decision to travel to Brian\u2019s lavish home with Chris in tow, wary of falling back under his spell but desperate for the healing touch he offers that makes all her worries disappear even just for a short while.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This film contains a lot of crazy ideas and opts to indulge all of them. It\u2019s an effective approach, leading to a delirious story that sometimes feels like it\u2019s too fantastical to be believed and at others feels remarkably grounded. Brian is both charming and terrifying, spending his mornings feverishly dancing as a way of meditating, and he exerts an incredible influence over all in his orbit, including his loyal assistant Laura (Marlene Forte), whose obedience feels more militant while Joey and Chris are instead hypnotized by Brian\u2019s apparent beauty and the very palpable serenity he\u2019s able to transmit to them whenever he wishes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On its surface, this film is a sci-fi\/horror-tinged comedy in the vein of <\/span><b><i>Save Yourselves!<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or <\/span><b><i>Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, more than eager to lean into the visually amusing depictions of aliens and their sensibilities. But there\u2019s something bubbling just underneath all the silliness indicated by how Joey acts, which is a deep sense of trauma that she has endured, and which Brian has gaslit her into believing was just a need to be calmed by his touch. His continued reminders of their wonderful \u201ccross-species intercourse\u201d feel like a deliberate attempt to subvert her feelings and emotional wellbeing, and to hide the fact that their relationship is toxic since she never fully consented to the power dynamic they have.<\/span><\/p>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1774669342741533\" data-ad-slot=\"1211148813\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As <\/span><b><i>Touch Me<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> explores those themes and the attraction that Joey can\u2019t dismiss to this man who didn\u2019t ultimately treat her well, it leans into the friendship between Joey and Chris, which is based in part on a shared sense of laziness and lack of motivation. Gavaris, best known for portraying Felix with an impeccable British accent on <\/span><b><i>Orphan Black<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is having a blast, and because Chris isn\u2019t suffering from the same trauma that Joey is, he\u2019s able to look at the situation from a less serious perspective, trying to temper his own immutable attraction to this magnetic alien. Pucci and Forte respond exceptionally well to the challenging nature of portraying their characters, making them over-the-top yet somehow believable. Dudley commands the screen with an uncertain sense of self from that very first scene, and she\u2019s a fantastic lead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Touch Me<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the second feature film from writer-director Addison Heimann, who creates something that is decidedly weird and entertaining but also has a strong sense of what it wants to be. At times, that\u2019s sillier than others, but the film\u2019s visuals enhance the viewing experience, using simple settings filled with extraordinary additions to make it dazzling and captivating, helping to explain why Joey can\u2019t fully pull herself away from this enigmatic figure. Buried underneath the clever, creative, and legitimately interesting story is an important reminder that taking care of yourself is important, and looking out for your best friend is just as critical, no matter who attractive any aliens may be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Grade: B+<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/author\/abe-friedtanzer\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Check out more of Abe Friedtanzer\u2019s articles<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Touch Me <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">makes its world premiere in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/festival.sundance.org\/program\/film\/6753380a68b8b77b4ffe621e\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Midnight section<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1774669342741533\" data-ad-slot=\"1211148813\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a9Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival There are plenty of theories about the existence of extraterrestrial life, and theatrical first contact experiences like the one depicted in Star Trek are hardly the only way in which humanity could become aware of them. Touch Me offers a truly unique method of undeniable confirmation for one human that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20471,19],"tags":[25865,25866,25868,25869,25867,643,25824,2235,25864],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris are terrific in Touch Me, a Sundance Midnight selection about aliens and attraction.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris are terrific in Touch Me, a Sundance Midnight selection about aliens and attraction.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cinema Daily US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-29T04:45:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-29T04:50:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Abe Friedtanzer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Abe Friedtanzer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539\",\"name\":\"Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-29T04:45:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-29T04:50:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10\"},\"description\":\"Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris are terrific in Touch Me, a Sundance Midnight selection about aliens and attraction.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1440,\"caption\":\"Olivia Taylor Dudley appears in Touch Me by Addison Heimann, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. 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He has been the editor of MoviesWithAbe.com and TVwithAbe.com since 2007, and has been predicting the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards since he was allowed to stay up late enough to watch them. He has attended numerous film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, and is a contributing writer for The Film Experience, Awards Radar, and AwardsWatch.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.cinemadailyus.com\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/movieswithabe\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?author=5\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction","description":"Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris are terrific in Touch Me, a Sundance Midnight selection about aliens and attraction.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction","og_description":"Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris are terrific in Touch Me, a Sundance Midnight selection about aliens and attraction.","og_url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539","og_site_name":"Cinema Daily US","article_published_time":"2025-01-29T04:45:49+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-01-29T04:50:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1440,"url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Abe Friedtanzer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Abe Friedtanzer","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539","name":"Sundance Film Festival: \u2018Touch Me\u2019 is a Weird, Appealing Story of Cross-Species Attraction","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg","datePublished":"2025-01-29T04:45:49+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-29T04:50:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10"},"description":"Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris are terrific in Touch Me, a Sundance Midnight selection about aliens and attraction.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=28539#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Touch_Me-Still1.jpeg","width":2560,"height":1440,"caption":"Olivia Taylor Dudley appears in Touch Me by Addison Heimann, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. 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He has attended numerous film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, and is a contributing writer for The Film Experience, Awards Radar, and AwardsWatch.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.cinemadailyus.com","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/movieswithabe\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe"],"url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?author=5"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}