Sundance review: 'Emergency' is a college buddy comedy with a stinging message under the laughs

Smuggling a lot of importance under the guise of a college buddy romp, director Carey Williams’ acidic comedy “Emergency” generates laughs, tears and a bracing look at the continuing perils of being Black in America.

Sean (RJ Cyler) and Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) are roommates and best friends about to graduate from college. Kunle has his future well in hand, with graduate school at Princeton and a budding career as a biologist. Sean is more laid-back, more interested in vaping and drinking than in getting his thesis done. On this Friday night, Sean is determined to get Kunle to join him for the “Legendary Tour,” a run through all the parties at their school’s seven Greek houses.

Sean and Kunle’s party plans hit a snag when they notice a white girl passed out in their living room. Kunle’s first instinct is to call 911 — but Sean vetoes that idea, predicting that the cops would automatically think the worst. Instead, Kunle and Sean, with their dorky third roomie Carlos (Sebastian Chacon), load the vomit-stained girl into Sean’s minivan, to take her to the hospital, and hoping they don’t get pulled over first.

The plan goes awry, thanks to DUI checkpoints and Sean’s pre-function buzz. Also, there’s the matter of the girl’s older sister, Maddy (played by pop star and former Disney Channel icon Sabrina Carpenter), who notices her sister’s missing and goes in hot pursuit, with her BFF Alice (Madison Thompson) and hunky Rafael (Diego Abraham) along for the ride.

Williams (whose “R#J” premiered at Sundance last year) and screenwriter K.D. Da’Vila expanded this story from a short of the same name that won a special jury award at Sundance in 2018. This version has its share of wacky mix-ups — like a gag involving a spiked energy drink — and frenetic bickering among the main characters. But there’s a sharp undertone at work, too, as Kunle, Sean and Carlos (who’s Latino) must deal with the ever-present danger of life of being, as Sean puts it, “darker than a brown paper bag.”

Cyler (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) and Watkins pair up strongly, as their harrowing night reveals their characters’ contrasting attitudes and a few secrets the friends have kept from each other. For all of its sly humor and observations about race in America, “Emergency” is at its heart a buddy picture, and these two make that friendship feel like the real thing.

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‘Emergency’

★★★1/2

Premiered Thursday, January 20, in the U.S. Dramatic competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again on the festival portal, Saturday, January 22, for a 24-hour window starting at 8 a.m. (The movie will have a limited theatrical run starting on May 20, and stream on Prime starting May 27.) Not rated, probably R for language including racial epithets, some violence, drug use and teen drinking. Running time: 104 minutes.