Earthlings

• Steven Doughton
• 79 min
• United States
• 2023
• Fiction

Mexican day labourers become unexpected dinner guests at their well-ordered employer's intimate and drunken gourmet dinner, in toned-down, aesthetically acute American indie.

When the expected guests cancel their attendance at the Chinese dinner Tom is planning, he pays his two workers (the boisterous, Americanized man Diego and the homesick rookie Javier) to stay and eat. When the others show up despite all, as the tequila and expensive wines flow, the evening turns into a kind of showdown, featuring dancing, flirting, and card games. Steven Doughton examines the dynamics of an unequal party where class, background, ethnicity, and money create hierarchies while the longing for human encounters knocks them out. The film is based on a short story by Jonathan Raymond (writer behind Meek’s Cutoff, Mildred Pierce) that is subtly well-acted and of course with elegantly chosen music, by seasoned music-video director Doughton.

- Camilla Larsson

• Drama
• Världspremiär
• Kolonialism
• Social rättvisa
• Adaption
• Rasism
• Relationer