Film

The Congress

Name: The Congress
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction, Animation
Released: 2013
Cast: Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Danny Huston

Science fiction
Strange

An aging actress sells her image to a studio for one final paycheck, only to discover decades later that she's been digitized and trapped in a surreal, animated afterlife. Ari Folman's adaptation is visually inventive but narratively demanding—a philosophical sci-fi fever dream about identity, obsolescence, and the price of immortality.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy satire about Hollywood's appetite for faces and fame, and don't mind a film that gets stranger and more ambitious the longer it runs.

Skip it if you want a tidy, grounded drama, since it often prizes big ideas over warmth, and at over two hours its patience-testing stretches can drag.

What it asks of you: Expect a long sit of just over two hours with a tone that keeps changing gear, moving from wry and intimate to loud and surreal, so stay alert.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Synecdoche, New York2008

A director creates an increasingly elaborate theatrical production that bleeds into his actual life. Like *The Congress*, it explores how art consumes identity and the desperate human need to leave something behind.

But It's deliberately obtuse and layered; the plot dissolves into abstraction. Patience is mandatory, and some viewers will find the self-indulgence maddening.

Mulholland Drive2001

An actress in Los Angeles grapples with fame, identity, and the machinery that destroys people in the industry. Both films use surrealism and tonal shifts to suggest the breakdown of self.

But It's a puzzle box that resists being solved. Lynch's mood can feel punishing, especially in the second half.

The Purple Rose of Cairo1985

A Depression-era waitress becomes obsessed with a film character who steps out of the screen. Like *The Congress*, it's about the intoxicating danger of losing yourself in fantasy and false images.

But It's lighter and more sentimental than you might expect, which some find either charming or insufficiently dark.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Congress

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Paprika2006

Both use animation to explore the dissolution of identity and the dangerous permeability between the real and the imaginary. Both suggest that once you enter that space, you cannot leave unchanged.

A scientist develops technology to share dreams, which escapes into the real world, collapsing the boundary between fantasy and reality. Satoshi Kon's animation is dazzlingly surreal, and like *The Congress*, it asks what happens when the imaginary becomes tangible.

But The visuals are deliberately chaotic and overwhelming. The second half abandons logic entirely, and if you need narrative coherence, you'll feel lost.

Blade Runner1982

A replicant hunter questions whether he's human. Both films wrestle with what makes identity real, and whether simulation can equal authenticity.

But The pacing is deliberate, sometimes glacial. The ambiguous ending frustrates viewers who want clarity.

Inland Empire2006

David Lynch's three-hour nightmare about an actress whose reality fractures during a film shoot. Formally radical and thematically aligned with *The Congress*' interest in Hollywood and fragmented identity.

But It's nearly impossible to follow. Shot on digital video, it's visually harsh, and the sound design is intentionally disorienting.

A Ghost Story2017

A widower haunts his house after death, experiencing time in a distorted, recursive way. Both films meditate on presence, absence, and the impossibility of permanence.

But It's meditative to the point of glacial. Some scenes demand you sit with discomfort for minutes at a time.

Everything Everywhere All at Once2022

A woman navigates multiple realities and versions of herself. Like *The Congress*, it uses genre-shifting and visual invention to explore identity and the self across different lives.

But The tonal whiplash—comedy, action, melodrama, existentialism—alienates some. It can feel exhaustingly maximalist.

Everything Everywhere All at Once poster

Under the Skin2014

An alien in human form travels Scotland, slowly understanding what it means to inhabit a body. Haunting and unsettling, it shares *The Congress*' interest in surface versus essence.

But It's a visual and sensory experience with almost no dialogue or plot. The pacing is glacial, and it's more mood than narrative.

The Secret of Kells2009

A gorgeously animated Irish fantasy about a boy illustrating a magical book. If you loved *The Congress*' animation but want something warmer, this is visually stunning without the existential dread.

But It's a children's film, which some will find too gentle after *The Congress*. The narrative is straightforward.

The Fountain2006

Both films are about an artist's obsession with capturing and preserving something eternally, and both suggest that doing so costs more than it's worth. Both use radical visual style to externalize internal collapse.

Darren Aronofsky interweaves three love stories across centuries in a meditation on mortality, art, and the futility of immortality. The production design is breathtaking; it's a rare blockbuster-scale film about death and time.

But It's aggressively non-linear and emotionally exhausting. Many viewers find it self-indulgent, and the ambiguous ending will frustrate those who want resolution.

Waltz with Bashir2008

Both films use animation not as escape but as a tool to explore truth, memory, and what we lose when we trade reality for a simulacrum. Both ask what you're willing to forget in order to survive.

An Israeli documentary animated rotoscope-style, where a filmmaker reconstructs his lost memories of the Lebanon War. It's formally extraordinary—conversation becomes animation becomes testimony—and devastatingly human about trauma and complicity.

But It's a Holocaust-adjacent work about war crimes and repressed memory. The shift from animation to live footage at the end is intentionally traumatic, not cathartic.