SXSW Film

Everyone's Going to Die

In the dark comedy Everyone's Going to Die, Ray (Knighton), an unhappily married, middle-aged gangster, meets and falls in love with an unemployed, engaged woman named Melanie (Tschirner). The two get along inconveniently well (given their marital statuses), and after little more than a cup of coffee, Ray takes her to his estranged brother's funeral, where they meet his brother's Wiccan family. Both characters have their reasons for unhappiness, to which they can now add the hopelessness of their budding relationship. None of this gets the characters down, however. Instead, they almost always find a way to make each other smile. These humorous exchanges between the two drive the film, which, despite its grandiose themes of love, loss, and mortality, remains completely unpretentious and seriously funny. A film of little action and many tightly cropped shots, this directorial debut relies heavily on the engrossing performances of the two main characters.