Elisabeth Moss (IFC Films)

Screw the aesthetic integrity of 21st century neo-realism; mumblecore cinema is full of well-regarded movies about obnoxious, entitled characters whose whiny self-absorption makes you want to run away when you see them coming. But if Frances Ha was a supposedly delightful person you would run away from on sight, Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip offered an insufferable twerp (Jason Schwartzman, the ur-insufferable twerp) who wasn’t supposed to be delightful. I still didn‘t warm up to it. But Perry’s new chamber drama Queen of Earth puts mumblecore millennials in a different context, and it suddenly all makes sense: these movies are about the despair of self-absorption and the emotional violence inflicted by spoiled brats.

Queen of Earth opens on an unflattering close-up of Catherine (Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss) being dumped by her boyfriend James (Kentucker Audley), her mascara blurred by tears and running down her face. As the camera holds on Catherine’s anguished face, the title appears in a cursive font that suggests both wedding invitations and Rosemary’s Baby.

This is a movie about toxic relationships, both romantic and platonic. The droning, ominous score by Keegan DeWitt immediately sets the tone of a horror movie, which is what it is: psychological horror. The title may refer to Catherine’s sense of entitlement as the daughter of a well-regarded artist, but the music, and the introduction of her in full Pagliacci mode, suggests she’s an alien.

After the breakup, a despondent Catherine packs up an easel (she’s an artist as well) and goes to stay at a lake house with her old friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston), whose family owns the house.

From here the narrative cuts back and forth in time as Catherine seems to replay moments from last year in her head, when she visited the same lake house with her boyfriend. These aren’t pleasant memories; Virginia openly digs at Catherine’s and James’ relationship. Katherine Waterston shapes her features into a dryly vicious rictus of undisguised hostility, telling James, “I wasn’t talking to you.” Even today, the old girlfriends are seemingly unable to sit by the lake shore without trading passive aggressive barbs. The fourth member of this unhappy party is Rich (Patrick Fugit), whom I could barely distinguish from James in their degrees of banal douchiness.

None of these characters are people you’d particularly want to spend time with, but it’s an emotional train-wreck that’s somehow compelling. Though the dialogue isn’t exactly Pinteresque, think of it as The Homecoming filtered through Bergman, Cassavetes, and artisanal cheese. The performances are strong, particularly from Moss, who may well be as spoiled as the rest but conveys vulnerability as she’s picked on by everyone else in the film. Moss has become an indie cinema darling, with a supporting role in Listen up Philip, but she owns this movie, taking full advantage of the attention heaped upon her as she falls into a nervous breakdown.

The movie occasionally takes you out of its brutal inner space with in-jokes—you occasionally see Virginia reading books by Ike Zimmerman, the fictional elder author in Listen Up Philip. But the grainy 16mm cinematography by frequent Perry collaborator Sean Price Williams keeps you uncomfortably close to the fireworks.

Queen of Earth is thoroughly unpleasant, but it’s one of the best dramas of the year. I wish I could tell you it was playing somewhere closer to town than the Alamo Winchester, but this IFC film is a natural for Landmark or Angelika, who I’m hoping will pick this up soon. In the meantime, you could see it on iTunes if you really want to, but this is a rare intimate drama that would benefit from the communal claustrophobia of a dark movie theater.

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Queen of Earth
Written and directed by Alex Ross Perry
With Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston
Not rated
Running time 90 minutes
Opens today at Alamo Winchester.