Sundance review: 'Save Yourselves!' is a sharp, funny take on technology at the end of the world

‘Save Yourselves!’

★★★

Playing in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Running time: 93 minutes.

Screens again: Monday, Jan. 27, Rose Wagner (Salt Lake City); Wednesday, Jan. 29, noon, PC Library (Park City); Thursday, Jan. 30, 9:30 p.m., Eccles (Park City).

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It’s the end of the world as the characters of “Save Yourselves!” know it, as this roughhewn comedy gleefully skewers urbanites’ over-reliance on technology.

Su (Sunita Mani) and Jack (John Reynolds) are a Brooklyn couple in a rut, and locked onto their screens. Su freaks out when Jack uses her laptop and messes with her browser tabs, which she keeps organized for her job as an assistant to an exceedingly demanding boss. Even a furtive make-out session gets sabotaged by the text-message alert.

After meeting up with an old friend, Raph (Ben Sinclair) — a former investment banker who now makes 3D-printed surfboards from algae in Nicaragua — Jack and Su talk about trying to shake up their lives. Their plan is to spend a week at Raph’s grandpa’s cabin upstate, turning off their phones to disconnect with the internet and reconnect with each other.

The trip gets off to a rocky start, as Jack criticizes the overly prepared Su for repeating lists of conversation starters she Googled and wrote in her notebook. During the argument, Su impulsively turns her phone on for a minute — which is when she gets the first hints that Earth is being invaded by aliens.

Then there are the killer pouffe balls — think a mix of “Star Trek’s” tribbles and the horror movie “Critters” — that show up around the cabin.

The writing-directing team of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson set up a scenario as a vessel for semi-improvised panic comedy, as Su and Jack try to apply city skills to an end-of-the-world situation — and then freak out when they realize such skills have no practical applications. Their argument about whether to use the rifle Raph has in the basement is a miniature master class in comedic banter.

Fischer and Wilson paint themselves into a corner before the unsatisfying ending, but the ride before that is engaging — and the visual effects, considering the indie budget, are effective. The reason to watch, though, is to appreciate the comic gifts of the scruffy Reynolds (“Search Party”) and particularly the wide-eyed Mani (“Glow”) deployed to their fullest.