TRUTH SERUM | Omeleto

A house party is spiked with a drug.


TRUTH SERUM is used with permission from Vika Evdokimenko. Learn more at   / anfanterriblefilms  .


Abbie is in a panic. She's about to throw a housewarming party with her husband Matt, and her hair is a disaster. With Abbie's timeline falling behind because of her beauty mishap, her friends begin streaming in, starting with Benji, who secretly nurses a long-running crush on Abbie. With Matt missing in action -- who's off in a bar with a beautiful woman -- Benji is more than happy to help Abbie out, especially as more guests arrive.

The gaggle of guests is a mixed affair, ranging from Abbie's boss to her friend Vera, who brings her surly teen daughter Roni along. But when Matt's troublemaker friend Jimmy arrives in his flashy sports car, all bets are off for a civilized affair.

Directed by Vika Evdokimenko and written by Oliver Shuster, this nimble, sharp-witted short comedy takes the time-honored narrative device of a social gathering to bring together a fascinating pell-mell of personalities, each with different secrets, pasts, motives and desires. Then it adds a rogue element to the mix, shaking everything up and creating a level of mayhem that tears off the veneer of civility to reveal the roiling truths of everyone around.

With such a large group, the clever, fast-paced storytelling quickly lays out the cast of characters, starting with the harried wife worried her husband is having an affair and the meek, quiet friend in love with her. There's a brassy, ballsy single mom and her annoyed daughter, a boss and a few others, but the real catalyst is Jimmy, a hard-partying, arrogant ne'er-do-well played in a slyly flashy, scene-stealing performance by actor Richard Gadd, lately of BABY REINDEER fame.

Jimmy brings unpredictability to what seems like a somewhat stilted yet civilized proceeding, especially when he accidentally spikes the party punch with one of his drugs, which seems to remove any ability for its users to lie. Under this influence, Gadd expertly peels away Jimmy's bluster to a hilarious yet genuine vulnerability, an emotional shapeshifting repeated by anyone else who has drunk the punch. The unraveling of the party is captured in sharp-eyed, deft and quicksilver camerawork and brisk editing, as people start saying things they should not say and reveal secrets they've been holding onto for ages. All the actors, from Olivia Vinall as Abbie to Danny Ashok as Benji to Killian Coyle as Matt, are memorably specific, and all fall spectacularly apart as their facades crumble, revealing the gnarly truths underneath.

The result is glorious social anarchy, leading to a contagion of uproars, a crumbling of relationships, a self-defenestration and a car crash for good measure. But it also allows some characters to be more honest with one another, which promises some glimmers of hope in their relationships. The orchestrated chaos and a real zinger of an ending make TRUTH SERUM a memorably entertaining watch, bringing the maxim of "The truth will set us free" to quirky, unexpected and chaotic life.