stripytights

Primetime (2026). Robert Pattinson stars as Chris Hansen, one-time host of NBC show To Catch a Predator, which catfished potential child predators.

Apparently Hansen was a bit of a meme on the late-00s internet, but I missed that entirely and had no idea who he was when the trailers for this started coming out. Even the name of the show was only distantly familiar. And based on that movie summary, I was not expecting to bother with it. Child predators: not a fun movie topic! I was eventually persuaded by reviews and one of the later trailers, which suggested that this was going to be Pattinson at his unhinged best.

Friends, if what you want is Pattinson being a slimy weirdo, this is absolutely the movie for you. He is the worst in the best way, and this is easily my favorite role of his since at least The Lighthouse, or maybe at all. This movie is also not all that interested in straightforward narration of facts and in particular is not interested in seriously exploring child sexual assault. This is a character study not even of Chris Hansen but an impressionistic exaggeration(?) of him. According to director Lance Oppenheim, the portrayal was mostly inspired by an unhinged Cameo video Hansen did. (Oppenheim also co-directed the new Elizabeth Holmes documentary that comes out this weekend, which if anything looks even more unhinged than Primetime.)

The movie follows Hansen through the brief interval between when his show got promoted to a slot opposite LOST and when a botched sting orchestrated by the show resulted in a district attorney committing suicide. Hansen's foil is sweet naive wannabe actor Dan (Skyler Gisondo, recently Jimmy Olson in last year's Superman movie), who's hired as a "decoy" pretending to be a minor in order to lure targets into the house where all the cameras are. I think Dan is supposed to be 23 playing a kid as young as 14, depending on the situation, and meanwhile the RL actor is 30, which is just one more thing about the movie that feels offkilter. Hansen, who generally has the people skills and empathy of a rock, intermittently sets himself to re-convince Dan of the heroic work he's doing in a way that makes it feel like he's talking to himself. Their interplay is one of the best parts of the movie. I also really enjoyed Hansen's producer, played by Merritt Wever, who has her moments of frustration but ultimately concludes that she's as happy chasing scandal and sensationalism as he is.

I would say this movie overall is not quite as wild as it could have been, given some of the hype I heard. It's still overally pretty conventional, so don't expect anything truly experimental. In any case, I had a good time.

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The Incomer (2026). Domnhall Gleason stars as Daniel, an employee of the Scottish Council sent to a remote island in the Hebrides to inform the island's two adult sibling inhabitants that they're being evicted.

This is a comedy that derives its humor mostly from the three mains, who are all misfits in their own ways. The siblings have grown up with a family mythology instilled in them by their father, so they have a vicious fear of mainlanders and are convinced that a member of other generation must sacrifice themself to the sea to allow the family to continue to live there. Maybe it's even true, since the sister has frequent conversations with a humanoid fish creature who hangs out in a lagoon. Meanwhile, Daniel is a regular introverted nerd who loves fantasy stuff and is too shy to talk to anyone at the office. After he convinces the siblings to not tie him up anymore and let him sleep in the house, they cautiously become friends, only for things to be complicated when the Council sends various people to come rescue him.

I would say in general it's a fairly warmhearted movie. Daniel's efforts to convince the siblings to leave become progressively more genuine as the movie progresses, and the ending is good. I laughed at parts of it. I really liked Gayle Rankin as the sister and would absolutely watch her in more things. I also enjoyed the whole movie as an exercise in interpreting Scottish accents. There was only maybe one segment where I lost the conversational thread entirely, so I was proud of myself.

On the other hand, I really did not enjoy some of the broader humor. The brother is portrayed as an idiot manchild who variously sexually harasses Daniel, tries to strangle him for reasons, and tries to "give himself to the sea" as his father did before him. All this is just more awkward given that he is gay! The second mainlander to show up is also just too silly to be fun.

In conclusion, results: mixed.