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Turn Me On includes a question heard repeatedly throughout the film: "Are you content?" This is the robotic greeting spouted by every controlled member of a repressive dystopian society fashioned after Brave New World. The characters take their daily "vitamin," just like Aldous Huxley's "soma," which pacifies the masses into a constant state of orderly submission. You can imagine what happens when our daring protagonist couple stops taking the drug and regains their pulse. Turn Me On is utterly predictable in this regard. There are scant surprises here, but you will have a positive answer to the film's constant refrain. Good character development and infectious lead chemistry make it a worthwhile watch and leave you more than merely content.

Joy (Bel Powley) and William (Nick Robinson) get up from their separate beds. "Are you content" is followed by their morning yoga session, slurping a pre-packaged breakfast shake and popping their blue and white vitamin.

Imagine a life without emotions. No highs, no lows. No tears, no laughter. No sex!!!! Michael Tyburski’s Turn Me On, written by Angela Bourassa, is an oddball. A likeable oddity, nonetheless a sophisticated freak show where the actors are more sinned against than sinning.

There isn’t much scope for that. Sinning, I mean. Not when the sun never shines on this bleak dystopian emotionless haven where love is not welcome, and intimacy is unknown.

Our hero and heroine are too dour sourpusses, Joy (Bel Powley) and William (Nick Robinson), who have nothing to look forward to in this painless paradise except perhaps the pain of not looking forward to what pain means. All of a sudden, when passion strikes the couple like a thunderbolt, they suddenly discover the joys of sex.

The sequences where Joy and William experiment with each other’s bodies are devastatingly erotic without a shred of nudity.

Michael Tyburski’s Turn Me On is a wonderfully witty, sly dystopian comedy. It’s able to build its discrete world without much fuss and yet cuts to a fine emotional core. Its generic templates reshuffle to inch towards a place of honesty and subtle efficiency. There’s no excess, just a stream-lined, spare distillation of the narrative terrain, stringing together passing clues in its orchestration. When the storytelling is neat and focused, the film flows.

Angela Bourassa’s screenplay opts not to go into a panoply of complicated world-building, keeping the mechanics simple and pared down. The central conceit is rather modest and unambitious. It’s this self-awareness that serves the film well, staving off the usual abscesses of more sprawling dystopian efforts. The makers understand the absurdity of inhabiting a repaired alternative of a niche, unaffected by emotional vicissitudes. Slowly, you’re nudged to a reckoning with the implications,...

YouPlanet Pictures traerá la película a las salas de cine tras su paso por el Ssiff. © Ssiff

Ya se ha publicado el primer tráiler y póster de Turn Me On, una comedia romántica de ciencia ficción dirigida por Michael Tyburski (The Sound of Silence) y escrita por Angela Bourassa (Si fueras el último). La película tuvo su estreno mundial en la sección New Directors de la 72 edición del Festival de San Sebastián donde se llevó el Premio Dama de la Juventud.

Turn Me On transcurre en una comunidad en la que se han erradicado los inconvenientes de las emociones humanas gracias a una píldora diaria. Cuando una joven pareja (Bel Powley y Nick Robinson) se salta su dosis, descubre el amor, la alegría, el sexo y todo lo que conlleva.

La película está protagonizada por Bel Powley y Nick Robinson. Completan el reparto Justin H. Min (After Yang), D’Arcy Carden...

Vertical has acquired North American distribution rights to Michael Tyburski’s romantic comedy Turn Me On, which world premiered in the New Directors competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

The deal was brokered by UTA’s Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers and the release is set for early 2025.

London and Paris-based Film Constellation handles worldwide sales, with UK distribution recently announced with Signature Entertainment.

Starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson, Turn Me One is set in a world where the inconvenience of human emotion has been eradicated by a daily vitamin.

Vertical has acquired North American distribution rights to Michael Tyburski’s romantic comedy Turn Me On, which world premiered in the New Directors competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

The deal was brokered by UTA’s Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers and the release is set for early 2025.

London and Paris-based Film Constellation handles worldwide sales, with UK distribution recently announced with Signature Entertainment.

Starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson, Turn Me One is set in a world where the inconvenience of human emotion has been eradicated by a daily vitamin.

YouPlanet Pictures traerá la película a las salas de cine tras su estreno en el festival. © Ssiff

El director Michael Tyburski, que debutó en 2019 en el Festival de Sundance con “The Sound of Silence” (2019), concursará en la sección New Directors de la 72 edición del Festival de San Sebastián con su segunda película, “Turn Me On”, escrita por Angela Bourassa (“Si Fueras el Último”).

“Turn Me On” transcurre en una comunidad en la que se han erradicado los inconvenientes de las emociones humanas gracias a una píldora diaria. Cuando una joven pareja (Bel Powley y Nick Robinson) se salta su dosis, descubre el amor, la alegría, el sexo y todo lo que conlleva.

La comedia romántica de ciencia ficción está protagonizada por Bel Powley y Nick Robinson. Completan el reparto Justin H. Min (“After Yang”), D’Arcy Carden (“Barry”), Nesta Cooper (“Bliss”) y Griffin Newman (“The Tick”).

Tras su paso por el Festival de San Sebastián,...

If You Were The Last is a romantic comedy with a science fiction twist, exploring relationship dynamics between astronauts drifting in outer space. Director Kristian Mercado drew on his experience in various mediums to shape the film, using elements of narrative, emotion, comedy, and pacing. Stars Anthony Mackie and Zoe Chao built a genuine friendship on set, bringing a unique chemistry and improvisation to their roles as Adam and Jane.

Romantic comedy gets a science fiction makeover in the indie movie If You Were the Last, directed by Kristian Mercado in his feature film debut from a screenplay by Angela Bourassa. Led by Twisted Metal's Anthony Mackie and The Afterparty's Zoë Chao, this genre-bending movie explores relationship dynamics in outer space with heart and humor alike.

Adam (Mackie) and Jane (Chao) are astronauts who find themselves drifting in a broken-down space shuttle after a NASA mission goes haywire. While floating between Jupiter and Saturn,...

Love knows no bounds -- even in space. If You Were the Last follows two sole-surviving astronauts, Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoe Chao), who are stranded on a spaceship. Navigation and communication systems are down. After three years adrift, NASA believes them to be dead. The duo dance, work out, watch movies, and talk to pass the time. Eventually, the dilemma becomes whether they should hook up despite being married to Earthbound partners. Besides verbal teasing and foreplay, Adam and Jane offer varying perspectives. Adam proposes that, since returning home seems unlikely, they should enjoy each other's company to the fullest. On the other hand, Jane argues that they are married and should remain faithful despite the circumstances.

Director Kristian Mercado recently spoke to Cbr about the script's whimsy, casting, connection to Alien, and the power of love.

Related: 10 Best Sci-Fi Universes In Gaming, Ranked

Cbr: A rom-com in space isn't a common mashup.

Kristian Mercado (Nuevo Rico) directed from a screenplay by Angela Bourassa (A Little Distracted).

The Exchange has boarded international sales rights to the romantic comedy If You Were The Last starring Anthony Mackie and Zoe Chao and will launch AFM sales this week.

Kristian Mercado (Nuevo Rico) directed from a screenplay by Angela Bourassa (A Little Distracted) about a male and female astronaut stranded in their broken-down spaceship who argue over whether they should spend their remaining days as friends or something more.

The film just debuted in the US on the Peacock streaming platform and is produced by The Promise,...

If You Were the Last is a sci-fi romantic comedy film directed by Kristian Mercado, from a screenplay by Angela Bourassa. The Peacock original film revolves around two best friends adrift in a broken down space shuttle with no chance of rescue as they argue over whether they should stay friends or become something more in their remaining days. The film stars Anthony Mackie and Zoe Chao in leading roles with Natalie Morales and Geoff Stults starring in supporting roles. So, if you loved the sci-fi rom-com film here are some similar movies you could watch next.

Passengers (Starz & Prime Video Add-On) Credit – Sony Pictures

Synopsis: Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt star in a high-stakes adventure about two passengers, Aurora and Jim, onboard a spaceship transporting them to a new life on another planet. The trip takes a deadly turn when their hibernation pods mysteriously wake them 90 years before they reach their destination.

"What if this awesome thing we have going on gets ruined?" Peacock has debuted the official trailer for an original romantic comedy film titled If You Were the Last, directed by Kristian Mercado from a script by Angela Bourassa. This sci-fi rom-com with a simple twist is about two people stuck on a spaceship out in the solar system questioning their relationship and sex and everything else. This initially premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, but is skipping theaters entirely for the release. Adrift in their broken-down space shuttle with little hope of rescue, two astronauts argue over whether they're better off spending their remaining days as friends or something more. Starring Anthony Mackie as Adam & Zoe Chao as Jane, with a small cast including Natalie Morales, Geoff Stults, Missi Pyle, Sarah Voigt, and Kaleka. This looks super cute and quaint and funky, with some stop-motion papier-mâché...

If you were chilling in space, not knowing whether anyone was coming to save you, then I would suspect there was something wrong with you. How could there be not? Yet, director Kristian Mercado, with writer Angela Bourassa, has created the world of the film If You Were the Last, where suspension of disbelief is key to enjoying this romantic comedy. Space movies like Alien, Passengers, and many others have ominous undertones, probably because we don’t know what space holds for us and we fear what we don’t understand. Here in this movie, we are totally guaranteed that space is kind of a weird plaything where spaceships float and people can have cool lives living inside of them. Death is neither certain nor completely off the table, but it’s not much to fuss about. Living life to the fullest is what counts. The story of If You Were the Last...

Exclusive: The Sound Of Silence director Michael Tyburski’s dystopian romantic comedy Turn Me On, starring Bel Powley and Nick Robinson, has wrapped principal photography

London and Paris-based production, finance and sales company Film Constellation, which is handling international sales, has posted a first image ahead of unveiling a trailer in a pre-official Marché du Film kick-off screening on Monday.

In a world where the inconvenience of human emotion has been eradicated by a government-imposed daily vitamin, Powley and Robinson play a couple who skip their daily dose.

They discover love, joy and sex for the first time, but quickly come to realize they must also handle the emotional baggage that comes with it.

Justin H.Min, Emmy nominee D’Arcy Carden, Nesta Cooper and Griffin Newman (The Tick) round out the cast.

Turn Me On is the second collaboration between director Michael Tyburski and Film Constellation following his Sundance hit The Sound Of Silence, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones.

UTA and CAA Media Finance co-rep North America.

Turn Me On is produced by Zareh Nalbandian, Toby Nalbandian and Gregory Schmidt of Truant Pictures, a division of Animal Logic Entertainment (Peter Rabbit 1&2), and producer Sean Bradley (Paddleton). The script is written by Angela Bourassa who is also serving as executive producer.

Powley is represented by UTA, Curtis Brown and Jackoway Austen.

Stars: Olesya Rulin, Laura Vandervoort, Bruce Davis, Pamela Bell | Written by Angela Bourassa, Adam Pachter | Directed by Josh Brandon

Anyone who has taken a long trip by bus knows just what an odd experience it can be. Stuck in close quarters with strangers, sometimes for days. Depending on who those strangers are it can be either fun or absolute hell. Black Bags, the new thriller from director Josh Brandon and writers Angela Bourassa and Adam Pachter finds a new way to make it hell even after your trip is over.

Tess is having a troubled pregnancy, so troubled she’s taking experimental meds every four hours to try and see it to term. Presumably, it’s also causing her blackouts which is why she’s taking the bus back from the doctor rather than driving.

On the bus, she meets Sarah who sits next to her despite the bus being mostly empty.

The old saying goes you shouldn’t marry anyone you can’t stand to be with for a three-day train ride. This is perhaps the basis for most of Richard Linklater’s Before series, tracing a couple from initial courtship to eventual marriage, from the fantasy of being young and taking a different path to settling into comfort. Kristian Mercado’s fluffy and sweet hang-out movie If You Were the Last initially opens in a living room before we pull back to reveal that our couple, Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoe Chao), are floating ruthlessly in space, on a self-sustaining ship that has lost all navigation and communication with NASA back on earth. Like an extreme version of the Before series, we enter mid-relationship, after the routines have been established 1,000 days into a solidly platonic relationship.

Adam and Jane are set in their schedules: completing the checklist, caring for the garden and animals,...

Romantic comedies haven’t quite disappeared, and indie filmmakers are coming up with fresh angles to tell such stories, breathing new life into the genre. Director Kristian Mercado and screenwriter Angela Bourassa know what’s up when it comes to rejuvenating romance, taking it to space in the utterly charming and lovely If You Were the Last. The sci-fi romance gets creative with its space aesthetic and its relationship dynamics, delivering a thoughtful, tender, and humorous romance filled with great banter and fabulous chemistry from the film’s leads.

Jane (Zoe Chao) and Adam (Anthony Mackie) are astronauts who wind up stuck between Saturn and Jupiter for three years after their spaceship’s system malfunctioned and left them stranded. Their ship has everything they need to survive — oxygen, food, and each other. Jane and Adam have a daily routine; she tries to figure out what went wrong with the ship’s wiring,...

The SXSW Film & TV Festival has returned to Austin, and Deadline’s reviewers are watching all the key films. Here is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year was the launchpad for newly-minted Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once. The Daniels’ wild sci-fi action comedy is the first pic to debut at SXSW and go on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Related Story SXSW: ‘Raging Grace’ Takes Top Honors In Narrative Feature Competition – Winners List Related Story Bill Walton On Being "Leery" About ESPN Series On His Life, Career, And What He Considers "My Greatest Accomplishment And Your Worst Nightmare" Related Story 'Evil Dead Rise' Review: Deadites Cause High-Rise Havoc In Lee Cronin's Latest Horror Venture – SXSW

Check back often as we add more reviews.

Bottoms (L-r) Rachel Sennott as Pj and Ayo Edebiri as Josie in ‘Bottoms’

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"If You Were The Last" is a fairy tale about friends with benefits, chemical attachments, and complicated relationships — in space. Kristian Mercado's feature debut shoots courtship drama into orbit, defying societal norms here on Earth. Angela Bourassa's screenplay sparkles like stars in the night sky, relying on conversations to hold the audience's attention in this dialogue-heavy interstellar chamber piece. Mercado's style is charmingly lo-fi, thanks to nifty arts and crafts effects (whether real or animated). He trusts actors to carry scenes with nothing but their charisma and flaunts impressive command for a debut filmmaker. It's like "No Strings Attached" but with zero gravity or "Friends With Benefits" caught in Jupiter's orbit.

Anthony Mackie co-stars as NASA astronaut Adam, a scientist stuck adrift in the cosmos with technician team member Jane (Zoe Chao). They're somewhere in Year 3, around day 1,000, with no signs of ever returning home thanks to navigation and communication malfunctions.

There are lots of ways to pitch If You Were the Last. How about “Michel Gondry remakes When Harry Met Sally — in space!” Who wouldn’t want to see that? But for all the ingenious hot takes one can dream up for Kristian Mercado’s ambitious feature-length debut, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s less than the sum of its parts. To be brutal, although it does, for an hour at least, cast a spell, raise interesting metaphysical questions, and center on an odd couple who, for once, actually don’t seem like they’ll get together and then totally convince us when they do — it doesn’t really pass muster as a movie at all.

Which is surprising, because character-based, low-budget sci-fi indies set in the howling existential wilderness of deep space do have a history of working against the odds, like John Carpenter’s blackly...

Hooray! A romantic comedy that revives the screwball formula where two people talk themselves silly — and we only had to go to the end of the solar system to make it happen. Adam (Anthony Mackie) and Jane (Zoë Chao) are the sole surviving astronauts on a ship with no navigation and no communication system able to transmit their grievances to their NASA superiors who presumably think them dead. How long have they been adrift? Three years. How literal is the title “If You Were the Last”? Very.

But Kristian Mercado, making his narrative debut after directing a string of stand-up specials, and Angela Bourassa, who wrote the Black List-hailed screenplay, haven’t made a film about settling for the nearest sexual organ. Instead, the swooning comes from watching these platonic shipmates debate why they should, and shouldn’t, settle — only to realize that their ability to have these frank...

“If You Were the Last” officially marks lead star Zoë Chao’s Hollywood takeover. After stealing scenes in Netflix’s return-to-form rom-com “Your Place or Mine” and being a welcome addition to “Party Down” Season 3, Chao leads the indie sci-fi romantic comedy opposite Anthony Mackie. The two leads’ already formidable charisma goes off the charts when they are put side by side. The chemistry? It’s out of this world.

Chao plays astronaut captain Jane, who is trapped in an adrift spaceship with her lieutenant, scientist Adam (Mackie). Three years into a NASA mission, and Jane and Adam are lost, alone with each other, and counting down the days until their inevitable starvation. The film is set in the not-so-distant future where Matt Damon is still around (and still a go-to celebrity to name check), adding a charming familiarity to a film still rooted in the present. The Wes-Anderson-meets-West-Elm mid-century...

If Wes Anderson and Nancy Meyers joined forces to remake the 2016 sci-fi drama Passengers, the result would be something like If You Were the Last, a vivid but overly cute feature debut from director Kristian Mercado that premiered at SXSW.

Anthony Mackie and Zoë Chao star as a pair of astronauts stranded aboard a NASA shuttle that gets lost in space, and their decent onscreen chemistry helps fuel a rom-com tackling questions of fidelity, friendship and, well, fornication, as the would-be couple endlessly drifts through the cosmos. Backed by a colorful DIY aesthetic that makes the most of its budget, the film is nonetheless sappy and, in terms of its comedy, rather cringe-worthy, never quite finding the sweet spot between romance and laughs.

Written by Angela Bourassa, the high-concept story is purposely low-fi from the start, revealing how Adam (Mackie) and Jane (Chao), two highly trained space explorers, are stuck...

Exclusive: Love, Simon and Jurassic World actor Nick Robinson and White Boy Rick and The Morning Show actress Bel Powley have been set to star in sci-fi rom-com Turn Me On.

The film is set in a world where the inconvenience of human emotion has been eradicated by a government-imposed daily vitamin. When a young couple skips their dose, they discover love, joy and sex for the first time, but come to realize they must also handle the emotional baggage that comes with it.

London-based sales firm Film Constellation is launching international pre-sales at the virtual EFM this week. UTA and CAA are repping North America.

Michael Tyburski is directing, marking the second collaboration between the director and Film Constellation after Sundance drama The Sound Of Silence, which was picked up by Sony. The script is penned by 2020 Black List writer Angela Bourassa.

Principal photography is slated to commence in...

Rounding up the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, as voted on by hundreds of film executives, The Black List has been a strong resource to clue one in on projects to potentially anticipate, but first, to kickstart Hollywood on bringing them to screen. Today we have this year’s edition.

Topping the 2020 list is Sophie Dawson’s social media satire cannibal film Headhunter, while others include Cat Wilkins’ comedy Two-Faced, which Taraji P. Henson is set to make as her directorial debut, as well as the sci-fi scripts If You Were the Last and Bring Me Back, and much more.

As an early look for some potential upcoming films to keep on your radar, take a look at the top scripts below, and the full list here.

Headhunter (29 votes)

Sophie Dawson

A high-functioning cannibal selects his victims based on their Instagram popularity, but finds his habits shaken by a man who wants to be eaten.

The 16th annual Black List survey was released on Monday, showcasing 80 of the most popular un-produced scripts from up-and-coming screenwriters.

This year’s list was compiled from suggestions of over 375 film executives, who contributed up to 10 feature screenplays that were written in, or somehow uniquely associated with 2020 and will not begin principal photography during the year. Scripts had to receive mentions from at least seven of those executives to be included on this year’s Black List.

The first survey was released in 2005. Since then many of the included scripts have gone on to be produced, often to great acclaim. Among the most notable entries are “Argo,” “Spotlight,” “Juno,” “American Hustle,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” and “The Revenant.” Recent Black List-appearing films include Melina Matsoukas’s 2019 movie “Queen & Slim,” written by Lena Waithe with a story co-authored by James Frey, which was featured on the 2018 Black List; and Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,...

Sophie Dawson’s cannibal drama “Headhunter” and Jingyi Shao’s basketball story “Chang Can Dunk” earned the top spots on the 2020 edition of The Black List.

“Headhunter” follows a cannibal who chooses his victims based on their Instagram clout, but he finds his routine shaken by a man who wants to be eaten. “Chang Can Dunk” centers on an Asian American teen and basketball fan who wants to be able to dunk. He soon learns much more about himself, his friends and his family.

Cat Wilkins’ high-school comedy script “Two-Faced” was fourth on the list. Taraji P. Henson will make her feature directorial debut on the Bron Studios pic, in addition to producing and starring in the movie. “Two-Faced” follows Joy, a Black high school senior whose chance of attending the college of her dreams is threatened by her wildly popular and charismatic school principal after she confronts him with evidence of his racist past.

The 16th annual The Black List was announced this morning by Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, and below are the rankings of the year’s hot unproduced (or on the verge of being produced) screenplays. Leading this year’s list with 29 votes is Sophie Dawson’s Headhunter, which follows a high-functioning cannibal who selects his victims based on their Instagram popularity. However, he finds his habits shaken by a man who wants to be eaten.

Many of the scripts on the list have moved forward and are in the works including Randall Green’s coming-of-age comedy The Black Belt (15 votes), which has Chris Pratt starring and producing, for Monarch Media. Meanwhile, Taraji P. Henson is set to star in and direct Cat Wilkins’ Two-Faced (25 votes) for Bron Studios. This will mark the Oscar nominee’s first time in the director’s chair for a feature.

Apple landed Brian Gatewood...