A COVID-era experiment that uses lockdown-era strictures to test the limits of interpersonal connection, Andrew Bujalski’s There There would have seemed considerably less odd had it been rushed out in time for the first of the “virtual” film festivals. As late as SXSW 2021, it might’ve been welcomed as a defiant attempt to keep creating even when the thing your art depends on — humans sharing the screen as they attempt to share themselves — was unavailable, or at least fairly inconvenient to arrange. Over a year later, with filmmakers having endured what it took to deliver everything from tiny dramas to superhero tentpoles, the compromises are harder to overlook. However Tribeca audiences respond this week, it’s hard to imagine that There There won’t quickly become a curiosity defended by only Bujalski’s biggest fans, who will quietly admit it’s the one they love the least.

DIRECTED BY ANDREW BUJALSKI