\n\tThere are two types of people in the world: Those who\u2019ll admit to looking up their partner\u2019s exes on social media and those who are lying. Basic, Chelsea Devantez\u2019s expansion of her own 2020 short, builds itself around this embarrassing but universal truth. Following a brokenhearted woman whose obsession with her ex\u2019s ex comes to a head one lemon-drop-fueled night, the comedy serves tragically relatable laughs all the way into some genuine (if hardly groundbreaking) wisdom.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Ingrid Goes West<\/a> fashion, our early introduction to Gloria (Ashley Park<\/a>) is of her lying in the dark, furiously scrolling through Instagram posts by the impeccably dressed Kailynn (Leighton Meester<\/a>), apparently a model-pretty influencer clad in flashy dresses or tiny bikinis. Emphasis on furiously: Gloria\u2019s internal monologue swings between imagining Kailynn\u2019s perspective in the most mocking tone she can muster and bitterly picking her apart for being vain, vapid and, above all, basic.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tBasic\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n \tHardly basic.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue:<\/strong> SXSW Film Festival (Narrative Spotlight) \n\tKailynn is the ex-girlfriend of Nick (Taylor John Smith), who\u2019s none too thrilled when he wakes in the middle of the night to find his current girlfriend fixating on his old one. When Gloria refuses to let it go, Nick kicks her to the curb. One 6 a.m. pit stop for vodka and Totino\u2019s pizza rolls later (\u201cDon\u2019t witness me,\u201d she mutters to the cashier), Gloria\u2019s back at her own place, sobbing into pints of melted ice cream.<\/p>\n \n\tThe first act of Basic is a whirlwind, not dissimilar to the experience of anxiously flicking through a TikTok FYP in search of answers to questions you can\u2019t quite articulate. Devantez hops between Gloria\u2019s narration of Kailynn\u2019s feed, flashbacks to Gloria\u2019s childhood, flashbacks to her happier days with Nick, Gloria\u2019s imagined flashbacks of Kailynn\u2019s relationship with Nick, and Gloria\u2019s actual present-day reality so rapidly that past, present, reality and fiction blur into one another. If the frenzied tone is fitting for Gloria\u2019s mental state, it\u2019s also exhausting to watch.<\/p>\n \n\tBut just when Basic threatens to feel like too much, it makes an intriguing pivot. Certain that Kailynn has been sleeping with Nick, Gloria pounds back some liquor and puts on her hottest going-out top to confront the homewrecker in person. But the Kailynn she finds hosting trivia at a local bar isn\u2019t what she, and we, have come to expect.<\/p>\n \n\tThe real Kailynn is not some pampered influencer but a struggling comedian (and a pretty funny one, to Gloria\u2019s great annoyance). She\u2019s also something of a girl\u2019s girl \u2014 enough, at least, to volunteer to take a very sloshed Gloria home because \u201cThere\u2019s a special place in hell for women who let drunk women go home alone\u201d and, she quips, she\u2019s destined for the hell reserved for women who watch daddy porn.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter a thrilling detour into Kailynn\u2019s own perspective (\u201cThe best revenge isn\u2019t living well. It\u2019s this,\u201d she gloats when she sees how jealous Gloria is), Basic mellows into something like an odd-couple buddy comedy, as the route back to Gloria\u2019s winds through drag night at a cocktail bar, grilled cheese sandwiches at an all-night hole in the wall, and an impromptu skateboarding lesson and photoshoot.<\/p>\n \n\tIs it a bit of a clich\u00e9 that each woman eventually realizes the other is more complicated than she\u2019d assumed from scouring Yelp reviews and Venmo histories? Sure. Is it predictable that they come to see they have more in common than not, including a self-sabotaging fear of romantic betrayal and an appreciation for the soothing power of Zoloft? Probably. Is it anything all that revolutionary to conclude, as Basic eventually does, that one\u2019s dating history is not to be repudiated but embraced as part of what makes a person who they are? Nah.<\/p>\n \n\tBut does Basic ever stop being a blast? Also no. It\u2019s simply fun to hang with Kailynn and Gloria as they bicker about which one of them is the real bitch and, relatedly, whether \u201cbitch\u201d is an offensively outdated term or a coolly outdated one. Or to watch Gloria, whom Kailynn correctly diagnoses as having few friends, blossom as she\u2019s brought into Kailynn\u2019s tight-knit circle (including Ashley Nicole Black, Kandy Muse and Kenzie Elizabeth). Theirs is the kind of evening that comes only rarely but that you treasure when it does, when stepping out of your ordinary life helps you see it from a fresher, clearer perspective.<\/p>\n
Cast:<\/strong> Ashley Park, Leighton Meester, Taylor John Smith, Nelson Franklin, Kandy Muse, Ashley Nicole Black, Kenzie Elizabeth
Director-screenwriter:<\/strong> Chelsea Devantez
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 28 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n