Peacock

2024 / Dir. Bernhard Wenger / German / 102 minutes

Echoing the deliciously deadpan humor of Force Majeure, Bernhard Wenger’s indelible debut feature follows Matthias (Albrecht Schuch), a professional chameleon hired out by an agency to play all sorts of roles: a child’s pilot father at show-and-tell, a complimentary concertgoer, a stand-in for a surly spouse. He’s so talented at blending into the fictions of his work that when his personal life begins to suffer, his ensuing existential crisis pushes him to the edge and has him questioning his entire reality. The film is rife with darkly absurd images—a golf cart on fire, a dining table stare-down with a Great Dane—that punctuate this otherwise deliberately paced dramedy and serve as a wake-up call to people pleasers everywhere.

Watch if you like: social satire, dry German humor, saying “whatever you want is fine.”