Who’s lonelier? Generations that remember intimacy and have the skills — though atrophied — to connect with one another, or a generation born into such a wholly insular society that they can literally be dating someone and share no connection with their partner?
Kit Zauhar’s THIS CLOSENESS examines a world of failed and impossible intimacy in a society that either intentionally recreates the trappings of intimacy when it is absent, like ASMR, or chooses to ignore it when it exists for self-serving reasons, like staying in someone else’s home in an Airbnb. Zauhar’s film sees ASMR YouTuber Tessa (played by Zauhar) and her writer boyfriend, Ben (Zane Pais) check into a Philly area Airbnb so they can attend Ben’s five-year high school reunion. From the jump, it’s obvious that the trip is exacerbating existing friction between the two of them. Even their earliest interactions in the film are filled with little barbs and traps. This trip threatens Tessa, because she can’t access this piece of Ben’s history, and Ben seems occupied with wanting to keep this for himself, while feeling obligated to bring Tessa. Quickly in dialogue, unprocessed resentment toward Tessa’s work as an ASMR YouTuber surfaces as well. This could easily be read as resentment of her simulating closeness with the internet while not actually feeling connected to him, and as the story unfolds, there’s more to support the notion that Ben is jealous.
The Airbnb they rent is a shared dwelling with their host, Adam (Ian Edlund). Within minutes, we find these three crashing into each other in ways that make them all uncomfortable. Tessa accidentally walks into Adam’s bedroom wrapped in a towel before she knows where the bathroom is. Ben bullies Adam about removing a heavy window unit air conditioner, despite Adam’s pitiful explanation that the room gets intolerably hot in the day. Adam meekly offers that the listing was set up by an absent roommate, Lance, before they left to care for their sick mother. As soon as Ben and Tessa are alone, Ben meanly observes that he doesn’t think Adam’s absent friend is real.
A Gen-Z Tyler Durden doesn’t seem preposterous on further consideration. Gen Z is at the center of a storm of reasons stripping the time or ability to connect from one another. Social media is increasingly about performing for “engagement” instead of staying involved in the lives of others. Algorithmic personalization has massive corporations chasing niche communities and micro cultures instead of offering broad macro culture experiences. Shrinking economic security means Gen Z is often working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. They don’t have the time to form meaningful relationships.
As social infrastructures crumble, simulated intimacy rises like Tessa’s ASMR work, whispering into a 3DIO microphone offering affirmations to viewers and promises of soft pillows or cool sheets. Is it outrageous to think Lance might not be real? It’s not. THIS CLOSENESS’s power lies in showing discomfort when the willingness to maintain the social contract and honor boundaries is eroded. Ben loudly talks about how weird he thinks Adam is in the apartment. Multiple times, Zauhar frames scenes in one room where one character can hear another clearly through the paper-thin walls, hearing every cruelty. So why doesn’t Adam confront Ben? It could
be that he needs the income from the lodgers to survive, or that he is terrified of conflict, or that acknowledging it will require him to reconcile the nature of his relationship to Lance.
Ian Edlund’s performance as Adam is top-shelf, and I hope the front end of a long career. He infuses Adam’s every glance and gesture with the pangs of loneliness. We see him ache through his eyes and with slouching, subservient posture. There’s a Phantom or hidden
Hunchback quality to Adam. Just as he can hear Ben’s cruelty through the walls, he can hear Tessa’s defenses of him and offered explanations for his way of being. Sadly, Adam doesn’t consider in the moment that attacking or defending him or cudgels that his boarders might be using against each other with minimal actual meaning related to him. He’s the topic, but he’s immaterial.
Over the weekend, Ben spends an increasing amount of time with a friend from high school, Lizzie (Jessie Pinnick). Initially, it’s just affectionately reminisced memories that Tessa can’t share in leaving her out, then Ben admits that in high school, Lizzie gave him a handjob. Probably most hurtful to Tessa is, one night when out drunk with friends from high school, it’s Lizzie that gets him home safe. In the course of a quick weekend, Ben gives Lizzie affection, trust, desire, and his need for safety. Tessa records an ASMR video with Lizzie, where she whispers her way through a description of a massage oil, and as she lightly applies it, we can see in Zauhar’s performance how much she resents how easily Lizzie falls into an easy intimacy with Ben, while all he has for her is superficial chit-chat and hostility.
Tessa offers Adam a demonstration of her 3DIO microphone when she’s feeling most isolated from Ben. Edlund comes alive, and the scene is potent with eroticism. Tessa knows how much Adam desires her and how deeply lonely he is. She’s able to quickly conjure need and attention, greater than what Lizzie offers Ben. Zauhar shoots all of these encounters with a rawness and vulnerability that might be shocking for someone cruising for mumblecore.
In this film, every character feels like a voyeur, despite their proximity to one another. Adam wants to fuck Tessa and be nurtured by her. Tessa wants to — as she puts it to her therapist in a virtual session — “win.” For her, gaining someone’s attention and affection is to have it undivided. Ben wants to flirt and be treated with casual affection by Lizzie while possessing Tessa. These characters are lonely, sexy, and selfish. It’s an anxiety-inducing and all-too-real slice of the way a generation struggles to connect with each other. That’s what makes THIS CLOSENESS so great: it observes how isolated we are, even when we’re close enough to whisper in each other’s ear.
them, not even once. When he’s not disappointing his cats he’s watching and writing about film.
His interests run toward naturalism, SOV and forgotten thrillers. Against his better judgment he
has hosted a podcast, Impossible Coin, for six years.
Tags: Drama, Factory 25 Films, Ian Edlund, Jessie Pinnick, Kit Zauhar, Philadelphia, This Closeness, Zane Pais
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