Before we embark on this journey together I will tell you this, you are never going to see a movie like this again. It is truly in a league of its own. Relaxer is a mix of nostalgia, Pac-Man, milk and even a little shit. This is an outrageous movie, one that far too many will overlook still take it from me and go and watch this movie, it will not disappoint you.

To understand this movie I will need you all to cast yourselves back to 1999, because this movie takes place on the verge of Y2K and see’s Cam, David Dastmalchian, give his younger brother Abbie, Joshua Burge, the ultimate challenge. Abbie is not allowed to leave the couch until he goes beyond the level 256 of Pac-Man. He has to do this before Y2K and the inevitable end of the world happens. In reality if you get a perfect game and never die – except a certain strategic points, it actually one takes three hours to do this, though this is far from perfect.

(For you Post Millennial’s people generally thought that the world was going to end when the year 2000 began.)

This film will challenge you, possibly almost as much as completing Pac-Man. It is an odd premise and it has a lot of gross humor in it. Yet still there is something deeper at play here. Maybe in someways it is like Castaway or All Is Lost. Especially since it see’s an isolated protagonist who must push on at all costs, though Abbie may or may not have telekinetic powers. Don’t ask.

Beneath all the weirdness there is an actual human motivation for Abbie to do what he is doing, he has piratically nothing and if he can beat the game there is a chance he could win £100,000 from a contest run by disgraced competitive video game player Billy Mitchell. Abbie see’s this cash as his way out, even if his way out would simply be getting up from the couch, he wants to use it to buy a boat or go see his estranged father in prison. But in end it is just another trap.

If you still need sold on this movie then I should mention that it has a Neon Indian infused soundtrack and they are one of my all time favorite bands.

Even if it sees like I have painted this depressing picture of a movie it really isn’t, at times yes it is quite nihalistic, but at others it will make you laugh and after you will be thinking. In the end this is another one you should not overlook.