Slamdance Film Festival 2024 Review – It’s been a long time since I have seen a movie as inventive as Darla In Space. This is mostly good and sometimes bad. Darla (Alex E. Harris) is the happy owner of a custom coffin-making company for felines known as Kitty Kaskets. That is until her mother Leona (Constance Shulman) makes a bad bet, landing Darla and her business with a massive tax debt. Looking at a 30-day grace period before having to declare bankruptcy, Dalra finds help from an unexpected source in the form of a sentient yeast scoby named Mother (JS Oliver). Inspired by a character by Harris, writer-director team Eric Laplante & Susie Moon say “Yes, and…” to far more than they should, offering a satisfyingly unpredictable, but exhausting indie gem.

With the hilarious CPA, Charity (Rasheda Crockett) on her tale and her cranky mom Leona of little help, Darla takes a job mopping floors for Arnot (Thomas Jay Ryan). This is where Darla meets Mother, the yeast scoby who/that is locked in a shipping container. Mother wants to go to space and Darla needs over $350,000. Darla hatches a plan to rescue Mother and get it/them into Outerspace in exchange for Mother offering mindblowing orgasms to paying customers. Darla’s financial nightmare is handled and a glob of yeast lives the dream of space travel.

Initially, the plucky plan seems to be cruising along. Darla is raking in the money and Mother, the glob of yeast floating in soda, is getting closer to space. That is, until things go wrong. Mother grows impatient with the timeline while Darla fends off suspicion from her mom Leona, an ex, and multiple lecherous would-be customers seeking Mother’s life-changing orgasms.

Darla In Space is rife, dare I say lousy with creative curveballs. At a certain point, Laplante and Moon realize that the film can’t continue with another string of wild notions and they set their sites on a conclusion. People die in puddles of ooze, they regenerate, there are kidnappings, intrigue, and celebrity meet and greets under the blinding gaze of headlights. Still we need to know how this thing pans out.

For her part Harris has created an absolute gem of a character with Darla. Her attentive, befuddled demeanor is endlessley watchable. The same could be said for the ever-entertaining Shulman who plays Darla’s train wreck of a mom Leona. Shulman has a ravenous appetite for the scenery and you simply cannot take your eyes off of her silly antics. It is actully a credit to Harris in that she holds her own agains Shulman in every scene, often winning out with her comically frustrated Darla.

Darla In Space is quintescential indie filmmaking. Laplante and Moon are a creative powerhouse. A dynamic duo, if you will, of strange and resourceful ideas. The hot take here is that they need an editor. The duo knows how to build a world. They know how to ask the audience to go along for the ride. They just need to step back for a second and let things come to life.

6 Out of 10