Aardvark (2017)

First time feature writer-director Brian Shoaf stages some painfully awkward, sensitive and probing counseling sessions for Slate and Quinto to play. The script has lovely snatches of dialogue and fascinating, wounded characters.

A filmmaking decision at the end of the film thumbs its nose at us, with the language of editing seeming to contradict the message of Shoaf's screenplay.

Brian Shoaf does not break any new ground in Aardvark (besides featuring an actual aardvark in an independent film), yet his pairing of stalwart female characters with troubled men is a welcome twist of gender stereotypes.

It becomes clear that the situation is exactly as we imagine it to be, and that the sense of mystery that Shoaf has spent so much energy weaving is a red herring.

In its last moments...Aardvark finds a groove.