Sundance 2025: Midnight program’s Touch Me is a gratifying romp of campy, dark comedy, fantasy-horror with plenty of psychological and sexual vibes

From Sundance’s Midnight program this year, Touch Me, written and directed by Addison Heimann, is more than a gratifying romp of a campy dark comedy, fantasy-horror story featuring a quartet of overtly sexualized characters. Leveraging the creative reserves of the genre, Heimann wisely employs cinematic liberties to create characters, each toting their own luggage filled with codependency, oblivious narcissism, anxiety and self-doubt. Not just entertaining in its wild storyline, Touch Me also opens up a safer space for representing mental health in the queer community.

Following his first feature Hypochondriac, which premiered at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival and later was picked up for distribution by XYZ Films, Heimann once again reflects upon his own experiences in sculpting characters and dialogue that resonate with the mental health issues incumbent in the narrative.

In an interview with The Utah Review, Heimann said that making the drama Hypochondriac sprung from a mental health breakdown and realizing that it could be possible to learn to live with the issues instead of refusing to do so, in the hopes that something magical could happen to make them vanish. However, as he explained how he had refused to follow his own advice the first time, “I ended up suffering again in silence and sadness.”

Olivia Taylor Dudley appears in Touch Me by Addison Heimann, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Dustin Supencheck.

In Touch Me, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) are roommates and BFFs but with both being codependent, their relationship is strained to the breaking point. A nasty plumbing disaster leaves them homeless and in their desperation, they end up with the enigmatic character of Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), who happens to be Joey’s ex-lover. Brian is happy to reunite with Joey and invites both of them to stay at his compound, where his equally enigmatic ‘assistant’ Laura (Marlene Forte) lives as well. A prototypical narcissist, Brian is an alien whose sexual charms entrance Joey and Craig, aided by his healing touch to make any feelings of anxiety and depression disappear. However, Brian’s motives turn out to be sinister rather than genuine altruism, as Joey and Craig gradually learn. 

The movie’s broad contours are more autobiographically based than one might expect in this fantastical tale. “The movie was created after a devastating breakup of a friendship,” Heimann said, “and it was even more devastating than if it would have been a romantic relationship.” The dynamics that Heimann experienced  resemble what Joey and Craig portray in the film: each just as egotistical and selfish as the other and the relentless back-and-forth about one being right, the other being wrong, and vice versa. After the breakup, Heimann realized the actualities but also accepted life’s fundamental wisdom that sometimes friendships end without reasonable expectation of reconciliation and it is time to move onward. 

Touch Me is an excellent example of creativity’s therapeutic and instructive potential. The opening sequence in the film alludes to ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy. ERP’s distinction is that as an individual learns to cope with situations whenever distressing thoughts and situations occur, they can prevent their compulsion from taking over. And, the more often they learn to cope with such situations, they will become more adept at preventing the cycle of obsession and compulsion from dominating the rhythm of their lives. One eventually realizes that their fears, phobias or anxieties do not have to lead to outcomes they previously dreaded the most. 

“Craig [the character] is a version of me,“ Heimann said. Meanwhile, Brian is an amalgam of people he has known in his experiences, and maybe even a distant but darker shadow of Heimann. Brian’s irrepressible seductive allure sets up the metaphor encompassed with addiction, social anxieties, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). As Heimann explained, Brian’s seductive offerings contribute to his superficial attraction for love and compassion but at the end of the day, once that drug has worn off, the letdown and crash will make one feel worse. Going further, Heimann said that Brian’s oblivious narcissism and his basic instincts appetite for attractive (make that, hot) people and wild sex is just as immaturely unaware as someone who thinks that chicken nuggets and French fries will always satisfy their wants and needs.  Nevertheless, none of the characters can lay claim to innocence, thanks to the messy clusters that have defined each one’s existence. 

Addison Heimann, director of Touch Me, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Steve Martinez.

The film’s aesthetics are a product of a collage of cultural influences that harmonize effectively. A Japanophile, Heimann has been studying the language and is steadily working his way through the vast writing system of kanji characters. From his early appreciation for Studio Ghibli work, Heimann has plunged into many Japanese cinema and graphic literature genres, including horror narratives and period dramas. Parts of Touch Me pay homage to the tentacled aliens of hentai, along with his appreciation of gems such as Lady Rainbow (1973), a Japanese period drama that inspired Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003). Another touchstone for Heimann’s latest film is Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, a 1985 film directed by Paul Schrader, who also is credited for the Taxi Driver screenplay. In particular. Heimann is drawn to the final chapter adapted from the stories by the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. The climax occurs when Mishima and his rebels overwhelm Japan’s military defense and he attempts to enlist them into restoring the emperor as the country’s sovereign leader and god. However, he ends up being ridiculed and shortly afterward commits seppuku. The cultural potpourri sustains the viewer’s interest, Heimann has a solid touch for lurid fantasy that is lightened with just enough cheeky vibes.

Heimann said he enjoys working in a genre that allows him to get into difficult and personal topics. The creative product is entertaining film that can unlock the sinister self behind wacky, weird, wild comedy and offer a few meaningful touch points of hope and coping in the midst of exploring quirky, even bizarre, realms of fantasy.

For festival tickets and more information, see the Sundance website.

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