Sundance Film Festival 2025 – Body swapping isn’t an unfamiliar theme in movies, especially within the horror genre. However, body swapping with a piece of furniture is quite the fresh take, especially with an Oscar-nominated actress, in this case Juliette Lewis. Writer/director Amanda Kramer’s By Design is a daring feature. However, it’s not for everyone.

Lewis plays Camille. She encounters a sleek wooden chair in a furniture store’s showroom. Immediately, she’s drawn to it. She must have it. She basically pleads with the shop owner, even though she’s unsure if she has enough money. Meanwhile, two of Camille’s supposed best friends, Lisa (Samantha Mathis) and Diane (Miranda Bailey), really love the chair, too. Like Camille, they want to sit in it. They want to touch it. The shop owner tells Camille to return the next day, with the money in hand. She waits, but by the next morning, someone purchased the chair. Devastated, Camille pleads with the shop owner to still sell her the chair, even though the sold sticker remains. Because she can’t have it, she essentially wills her soul into the chair. For the rest of the film, Camille becomes the chair, while her physical body remains listless, even when people visit her.

Lewis is one of our most talented and versatile actors. This is, by far, one of her strangest roles. There’s even a sequence where she imagines dancing around with the chair. This film deserves a watch for Lewis’ performance alone. Meanwhile, the chair eventually winds up with the lonely jazz musician Olivier (Mamoudou Athie), gifted to him by his ex. Like Camille, Olivier exudes loneliness. However, the chair becomes a stand-in for his girlfriend, especially since it contains Camille’s soul. Yet, owning the chair causes trouble. It draws unwanted attention towards Olivier. Everyone in his orbit wants to own the chair. At a dinner party, they all take turns sitting in it.

This bizarre feature film does have some loose themes to it, namely loneliness. There’s also a sense that even best friends and ex-lovers will stab each other in the back to obtain the chair. Yet, some of the other themes aren’t as coherent. More than anything, this film is about the performances and the strangeness of it all. There are several sequences that play out like performance art, with an oddball cast of characters dancing around the chair. These scenes are truly weird, but it’s impossible to look away. There’s something simply arresting about this film.

By Design isn’t for everyone. It’s a body swap movie starring Juliette Lewis and a chair. Yet, Kramer deserves credit for creating something so audacious. For as weird as this movie is, I couldn’t look away. More than anything, this feels like a bold work of performance art.