‘Touch Me’ review: Dir. Addison Heimann [Sundance 2025]
In 2022, writer and director Addison Heimann burst onto the festival scene with the incredible Hypochondriac. The story was an unapologetic and frank fictionalised adaptation of his own experiences with mental illness. A very dark and heavy story spun through a surreal genre filter, THN was instantly smitten with Hypochondriac and has been eagerly awaiting Heimann’s sophomore project. That film – Touch Me – has now been made, and has just debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Touch Me sees co-dependent besties, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris), fall for the same narcissistic alien, Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), who may or may not be, trying to take over the world. From the premise alone, it is clear that Touch Me is a lighter affair than the devastating emotional gauntlet that was Hypochondriac. Having exorcised some personal demons, with Touch Me, Heimann is showing his brighter and more comedic side. Anyone that has seen any of Heimann’s interviews, or attended one of his Q&As, will recognise elements of his own humour and personality baked within the characters. It seems that Heimann cannot fully remove himself from his work, but this is true of all the great film directors and is a great positive for Touch Me.
The more comedic components housed within Touch Me align with Heimann’s script for the fantastic short film, Jeff Drives You, making the film a very easy and enjoyable watch. The humour of Heimann’s script is told beautifully through his cast with everyone expertly delivering the zingers written down, whilst at the same time committing fully to the more absurd elements of the story in order to sell it. Whilst there is a lighter and more jovial tone than Hypochondriac, Touch Me does still venture into some dark subject matter. From addiction and abuse, to gaslighting and coercive control, Touch Me explores a variety of toxic relationships in a very unique and tentacle-assisted way.
Olivia Taylor Dudley is excellent as lead character Joey. Dudley expertly manages to convey the many intricacies and anxieties of Joey, and makes her a compelling tour guide for this rather peculiar cinematic journey. An opening monologue set within a therapy session is incredible. Running at just shy of ten minutes, this is the first introduction to the character and Dudley’s performance is wonderfully natural despite the amount of words being delivered. This speech effortlessly catches the audience up with Joey’s history, setting up all the players to come, thereby swerving the need for awkward expositional conversations. Joey instead purges her past onto the screen, placing the viewer on the same page and allowing Touch Me to get right into the story.
Whilst Olivia Tyalor Dudley is brilliant alone, it is her partnership with Jordan Gavaris as Craig that really sells Touch Me. Gavaris is completely stripped of his fast-talking confident Orphan Black persona of Felix, replaced with an apathetic, Duolingo-addicted dreamer drifting through life. The pair of Joey and Craig are hopeless in life, and lucky to have found one another. Their relationship however, is not the healthiest. The two are dependent on each other for everything and their bond has somewhat suffocated them from the world outside of themselves. An easy chemistry between Gavaris and Dudley ensures that Craig and Joey’s long history is believable and makes a perfect foundation for which alien Brian can chip away at. Playing Brian is Lou Taylor Pucci who actively embraces his otherworldly side and creates an alien portrayal for the ages. Pucci also gets to show off his dancing skills in sequences that rival those in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina.
As Joey and Craig move into Brian’s house, they become seduced by not only Brian’s handsome appearance, but also his exotic nature. Neither is concerned by his extraterrestrial status, especially when a side effect of his touch is a state of orgasmic bliss. Both of them need the reassurance that his touch brings and it isn’t long before cracks between the friendship begin to show, and it is here that Touch Me becomes most fascinating. Watching these friends battle over a ‘man’ who clearly is beneath them both, is a sad but relatable scenario, Heimann adding in a real world phenomenon to help ground the otherworldly elements, of which there are many. With Touch Me, Heimann doesn’t hold back, and creates several tentacle-laced sensual sequences that are beautiful and mystifying to watch unfold. Heimann’s now signature use of colour and bisexual lighting, is also present, ensuring that Touch Me is equally as visually arresting as his debut.
Much like the second album of a musician after a hit, a lot of pressure rides on filmmakers after their first feature is well received. Thankfully, Heimann rises to the challenge and has delivered a film that is distinctly different to its predecessor, whilst undeniably retaining Heimann’s unique voice and vision.
Touch Me was reviewed at Sundance 2025.
