Hippo（2024）

Hippo (Kimball Farley) is a socially awkward narcissist who adores video games, creation, and confrontation. His adopted sister Buttercup (Berlinale Silver Bear winner Lilla Kizlinger) is an introspective Hungarian immigrant who’s never quite found comfort in her American family. Her Eastern Catholic upbringing and the repressions it fostered has led to distinctive perspectives on sex and pregnancy. While she secretly longs to bare her stepbrother’s child, she’s taken to exploring possible impregnation options with strangers on Craigslist (“a paltry list of potential sperm”, the film’s narration — delivered by Eric Roberts — observes). Hippo is terrified of intimacy and reacts in horror at the suggestion of going out to meet people. Both are homeschooled students who’ve had little social interactions outside of with one another and their mother Ethel (Eliza Roberts) with whom they live, a kind woman who’s been institutionalized and has seen at least one UFO.