Boys Go to Jupiter (now streaming on HBO Max) is, to put it simply, bizarre. Top to bottom. It’s no surprise to see writer/director Julian Glander’s resume includes animations for Adult Swim, which, if not for its typically short-form M.O., would be a perfect tonal and aesthetic landing spot for this feature. Despite working essentially on a shoestring – the film is up for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award, which honors productions budgeted under $1 million – Glander drew in voice performances by Jack Corbett (of NPR’s Planet Money fame), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Janeane Garofalo and SNLers Julio Torres and Sarah Sherman. And the final product is a deadpan-flat comedy with a distinctly crude visual aesthetic that’s, well, an acquired taste.
The Gist: Florida. The dead week between Christmas and New Year’s. Teenager Billy 5000 (Corbett) hangs out on the beach with pals Freckles (Grace Kuhlenschmidt), Beatbox (Fisher) and Peanut (J.R. Phillips). As Peanut makes a sad attempt at freestyle rapping, a weird sea slug/cucumberish squishy blob, transparent in color, washes up, and it’s exactly the type of curiosity that bored kids like these poke with sticks. But Billy has no time for that. He’s obsessed with earning $5,000 delivering food on his hoverboard, so he can move out of his sister’s house. Much of the movie that follows will find Billy interacting with a variety of oddballs who are either making food or ordering food. This is how life works: You make food to make money so you can buy food that keeps you alive so you may make more food to make more money. And on it goes.
Where his pals are fine with dicking around pointlessly as kids do, Bobby is keen to this idea, maybe a touch early in the process of becoming an adult, although I think it’s Peanut who comments that they’re in a recession. This is likely due to their status as working-class Floridians who have a little bit but not much (I’m not even sure Freckles owns a shirt). Anyway, Bobby works for Grubster, whose policies dictate that he say “Have a Grubby day!” to customers, and that he’s “not allowed to give any regards” to anyone. He picks up an order from Casahuevos and takes it to Rosario Dolphin (Miya Folick), who works at Dolphin Groves Juice Factory, under the supervision of her CEO mother Dr. Dolphin (Garofalo), who we don’t see corporeally, and is a face on a screen on a robot. Rosario prefers to be called Rozebud, don’t forget the “z.” She sort of makes friends with Bobby, showing him the “experimental wing” of the fruit-production laboratory, and he steals an experimental lemon with funky nodules on it when she’s not looking, something that I’m not sure amounts to much plotwise, but feel free to attach any symbolism you’d like.
From there, the film everywhere and nowhere: Bobby reluctantly takes in a weird donut-shaped gibber-creature with eyeballs, naming it Donut. He tries to take advantage of a currency-conversion glitch in the Grubster app in order to make more money. He has a philosophical exchange with the proprietor of World’s Largest Hot Dog, although Bobby mostly just listens. He delivers to Herschel Cretaceous at the Cretaceous Holes minigolf center – an anecdote I share simply because I wanted to write this absurd sentence. Dr. Dolphin isn’t thrilled that Bobby stole the experimental lemon. Bobby farts around with his friends a bit, but always talks about getting back to “the hustle,” which he sees as a purpose or lifestyle now that he’s dropped out of school. And this narrative jumble is frequently spiced up with mini sort of music videos soundtracked by Glander-penned lyrically and vocally plaintive dream pop songs, which will absolutely test your tolerance of lyrically and vocally plaintive dream pop songs.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Boys Go to Jupiter is of a tone and occasionally psychedelica aesthetic that spawned stuff like Adventure Time or Over the Garden Wall, to name some luminaries from the last couple decades of animation. Some moments thrum with surreal flourishes that brought to mind David Lynch. And as far as no-budget indie animation goes, I prefer Flow over this.
Performance Worth Watching Hearing: Comic Chris Fleming delivers some excellent, funny spiel as Weenie, the guy in the World’s Biggest Hot Dog.
Sex And Skin: We see Bobby in the shower and his groinal area is a brown squiggle. I dunno man. Just furthers the notion that cartoon characters ain’t anatomically correct.
Our Take: As for that dream pop, think Beach House more than, say, Cocteau Twins, which says a lot about Glander’s POV and who might connect with the film. Boys Go to Jupiter is very much rooted in (bear with me here, unavoidable annoying phraseology incoming) Zillennial ennui and a raised-on-the-internet detachment, both of which contribute to the outright burial of any relevant emotion. The subtext low-boils with a sense of melancholy doom, or maybe shrugging fatalism, although there may not be much difference between those shades of numbness.
It’s easy to praise the film for being bizarre, somewhat original and unlike most any other feature-length animation out there. It’s also easy to feel alienated by its way-offbeat narrative approach, which holds us at enough of a distance that feeling any investment in the characters and their lot in life is a challenge. The terrible subjectivity of comedy also rears its ugly head, as much of the jokes and visual gags missed the mark for me; Glander is better at satire (the depiction of a pious neighbor lady consulting her “Sinner’s Handbook” for a reason to shame our protagonists is a succulent skewering of Bible Belt sensibilities) but often leans into flaccid, surreal silliness (an otherworldly alien creature posting video reviews of human takeout food) that’s so post-ironic and post-earnest it’s often ineffective in its provocation.
Boys Go to Jupiter is admirable for following its own distinct directorial vision, but it’s often too strange, too slow, too meandering and too self-conscious about all of the above to appeal to anyone not on the post-deadpan wavelength. I’m not sure Glander truly has any new or profound assertions to make about social hierarchies and the grotesquely rigged American economy, but the film’s point-of-view has some power, a little something to observe beneath the nutty visuals and it’s-so-random comedy.
Our Call: Cheers to Glander for marching to his own beat, but for me – a Gen-Xer who just ain’t feeling it – Boys Go to Jupiter is a near-miss. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
