Film

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn

Name: An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Released: 2018
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Emile Hirsch, Jemaine Clement, Craig Robinson, Matt Berry

Comedy

A deeply strange comedy about a married couple whose stale relationship fractures when a mysterious performer arrives in town. Shot in muted pastels with deadpan absurdism, it's a film that seems to exist slightly outside normal space and time. For people who like their humour weird, oblique, and willing to sit in uncomfortable silence.

TMDb rating

2.8

If you liked this

Palm Springs2020

A similarly stylish take on relationship dysfunction and existential loops, but with more warmth. Aubrey Plaza again, that deadpan-meets-anxious energy, solving a puzzle while everything falls apart.

But Sunnier and less unsettling than Beverly Luff Linn. If you want maximum weirdness, you won't find it here.

The Lobster2015

Yorgos Lanthimos also builds impossible logic from absurd premises, with the same cold-eyed willingness to watch characters suffer quietly. A haunting film about connection, loneliness, and social pressure.

But Even more alienating and grim. The colour palette is bleak; the pacing is patient to a fault for some tastes.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen2012

A quirky British ensemble comedy with Jemaine Clement, Matt Berry, and genuine warmth beneath the oddness. Absurd premise executed with intelligence and real charm between characters.

But Much more conventionally charming and less unsettling. Leans into the comedy rather than finding it in discomfort.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

After Hours1985

Both are films about ordinary people encountering beautiful strangeness that strips away their carefully ordered lives. Both find horror in the everyday.

Martin Scorsese's only real comedy, and it's a nightmare. Griffin Dunne's one night in downtown New York spirals into increasingly surreal chaos. Same DNA as Beverly Luff Linn: elegant camera, escalating weirdness, relationship failure as backdrop.

But 1985 film stock and a very different visual language. The pacing is frantic rather than patient; it won't feel restful.

Tiny Furniture2010

Lena Dunham's debut has that same muted-colour indie oddness and willingness to show a relationship's small cruelties. Claustrophobic, funny, uncomfortable in the right way.

But Even more low-key and deliberately slow. Almost nothing happens, which is kind of the point but also a real barrier.

Eating Raoul1982

A cult black comedy about suburban desperation that predates Beverly Luff Linn's sensibility by decades. Darkly funny, weird without trying, genuinely disturbing.

But Much older, lower budget, grainier. The humour is blacker and more transgressive; it won't feel as polished.

Search Party2016

An HBO dark comedy with Alia Shawkat that has similar energy: beautiful cinematography, deeply awkward characters, comedy that lives in moral ambiguity and social dysfunction.

But A series rather than a film, and it builds differently. Takes longer to land its rhythms, and some find the protagonist exhausting.

The Disaster Artist2017

James Franco's love letter to creative failure has that same deadpan affection for weird, damaged people. Funny and sad in equal measure, beautifully shot, genuinely moving.

But Much warmer and more earnest. If you want pure discomfort rather than heart, you'll find this too sentimental.

Under the Silver Lake2018

Released the same year, another film that drowns you in aesthetic and mystery. David Robert Mitchell's paranoia-comedy about obsession and the search for meaning in the mundane.

But Nearly three hours, genuinely confusing, takes itself very seriously. Some of the weirdness feels arbitrary rather than earned.

Happiness1998

Both films refuse to explain themselves or make their characters likeable. Both find comedy in the gap between appearance and reality, between what people tell themselves and what they actually are.

Todd Solondz's masterpiece is brutal, hilarious, and nauseating in ways that make Beverly Luff Linn look cosy. Dark comedy about suburban misery that never looks away. Made by someone with genuine contempt for his characters and viewers alike.

But Contains content that is genuinely disturbing, not just weird. Bleaker than almost any film you've seen. Many will find it unwatchable.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Both films use aesthetic beauty and formal control to make the viewer deeply uncomfortable. Both create a logic that is internally consistent but utterly alien. Both treat weirdness as a fact, not a joke.

Yorgos Lanthimos again, but in full horror mode. A surgeon's life is invaded by a mysterious boy with unclear motives. Formal, strange, deeply unsettling. A masterpiece of negative space and dread.

But Not funny at all—purely unsettling. The film moves with glacial deliberation. Some find it pretentious; others find it genuinely unbearable to sit through.