How John Early and Theda Hammel Found Laughs in Lockdowns in the Pandemic-Set ‘Stress Positions’

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Murtada Elfadl Building on the promise of her short film “My Trip to Spain,” which played Sundance in 2022, filmmaker Theda Hammel returns to the festival with her feature debut, “Stress Positions.” Joined by favorite collaborator and lead actor John Early, she brings along the same wry sharp humor and the same incisive parody of her generation, only this time, Hammel is playing on a bigger canvas, directing a larger cast and tackling more topics and themes. Among other things, the film might be the first genuinely enjoyable film made about the pandemic. Set entirely within a few days in the summer of 2020, “Stress Positions” follows Terry Goon (Early) as he navigates a rather stressful few weeks.

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Theda Hammel’s latest dramedy at Neon Stressed Positions stars Hammel, John Early, Qaher Harhash, Amy Zimmer, Faheem Ali, and Rebecca F. Wright follows Bahlul, a queer Moroccan-American model that everyone wants to meet. While moments emerge showing the glimmer of an insightful character study, the film quickly dissolves into an endurance test drowned out by superficial noise. One must tip the cap to Hammel’s sheer feat of micro-budget production, but his organic style choices bewilder more than enlighten.The film follows Bahlul (Harhash), a 20-year old  Moroccan, American model, spending his time in recovery from a broken leg with his uncle Terry in Brooklyn, Ny. Terry is not Moroccan, but American and white and are family by marriage. The injured Bahlul meets a cast of eccentric characters, including Terry’s best friend Karla (Hammel), Carla‘s girlfriend, Vanessa (Zimmer), Terry’s husband Leo (Roberts), Ronald (Ali), the local GrubHub delivery guy, and Coco (Wright), the woman living in the apartment above them. 

PARK CITY – It’s 2024. Are you ready for a movie set in the pandemic summer of 2020? Or, like September 11th, another historical event that was hard for Americans to stomach on screen for a good while, do you need a decade or so to process? Your answer to those questions will likely, for better or worse, determine your opinion of Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions” which debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

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