SXSW Film Review: Sender

Whenever I order something online, it never dawns on me that I could be letting anything through my door and into my home. We take it for granted that the products we receive will be exactly what we ordered, and the unspoken contract we sign when we buy something virtually will be honored. Sender, the debut feature from director Russell Goldman, offers a wrinkle to this idea: What if you started receiving packages you never ordered in the first place?

The movie follows Julia (Severance Emmy winner Britt Lower), a recovering alcoholic, as she struggles to find stability in her newfound sobriety and independence. As Julia tries to establish a new sense of normalcy, she starts receiving packages she never ordered from Smirk, an online store that is clearly a stand-in for Amazon. Soon enough, the contents of the packages become unnerving. Along with the help of a Smirk delivery driver (David Dastmalchian), and her well-meaning sister Tat (Anna Baryshnikov) constantly checking in, Julia decides to investigate the packages’ origin, no matter what it takes. 

Sender is, much like Julia’s mindset as she enters sobriety, chaotic. Visually, the film jumps between the present and the past quickly and delineates them by making the flashbacks (primarily to Julia’s drunken memories) all warped and vignetted. The camera here is unstable, and so is the focus, evoking the recklessness she had lived her life with up until now. It can be jarring, but these editing and camera choices put us directly in Julia’s headspace as she tries to get her life together. As the packages pile up inside her new rental home, the tension ratchets up, and the mystery only gets weirder. So does the sound design, full of electronic crackles and the satisfying sound of Julia punching in boxes to break them open. Everything is heightened here, adding to the state of paranoia our main character finds herself in.

The performances are what make Sender’s sometimes unwieldy mystery engaging. Lower gives a determined, electric performance as Julia, imbuing her with a wild-eyed determination, but also desperation to latch onto something in the wake of her sobriety. Julia is not concerned with the opinions of the people around her, like the prim and proper Tat, who is a realtor and is desperate in her own way to help Julia even when she pushes her away. Dastmalchian brings an uneasy but sweet energy to Charlie, the Smirk delivery driver who brings all the mystery packages to Julia’s doorstep. You’re never quite sure how sincere he is until the last third of the film, when he and Julia share a tender moment in his delivery van. These are two people who have been struggling to find a connection, and for a brief moment, they share one with the touch of a finger. It’s one of the movie’s strongest moments, and a great show of Lower and Dastmalchian’s talents even in quieter scenes.

The mystery at the center of Sender, unfortunately, is the weakest part of the film. The suspense and weirdness that it builds is intriguing, generating ideas about potential corporate conspiracies and stalker sabotage. Instead, the revelation in the film’s third act about who’s actually behind the packages feels a little flat after all the buildup. Still, it’s a harrowing film that understands the messiness and the terrifying nature of recovery from addiction. Perhaps the messiness is the point, even if it left me feeling a little empty.

Sender Narrative Feature Competition, World Premiere Monday 16, 2pm, Alamo Lamar Wednesday 18, 2:45pm, Alamo Lamar Find more of The Austin Chronicle’s continuing coverage of SXSW.

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