SXSW 2024 Film Reviews: The Fall Guy, Babes, Y2K

This year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival once again brought out the big guns, with a number of high-profile world premieres including The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, Immaculate starring Sydney Sweeney, and the recently-announced premiere of Alex Garland’s Civil War starring Kirsten Dunst.

Read on for our initial thoughts on three major premieres; The Fall Guy, Babes, and Y2K.

Stay tuned for further coverage from the film and music components of SXSW throughout the week. You can find all of our SXSW coverage here.

The Fall Guy

Less than 48 hours after breaking the internet with his incredible performance of “I’m Just Ken” at this year’s Oscars, Ryan Gosling and his co-lead Olivia Wilde crash-landed in Austin for the world premiere of The Fall Guy at SXSW.

Directed by David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool), The Fall Guy is the sort of four-quadrant crowd-pleaser we rarely get out of Hollywood any longer. Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stunt double on the rocks since a major on-set accident. Lured back into the game by the prospect of once again working with his former flame Jody Moreno (Olivia Wilde) — now a director helming a big budget sci-fi epic — Seavers is quickly thrown into a manhunt to track down the film’s elusive star, placing him in the middle of a deadly conspiracy.

A flat-out homage to the art of stunt work, The Fall Guy is a clever and endlessly entertaining meta blockbuster that manages to weave in thrilling stunt work, off-kilter humour, and genuine romantic chemistry between its irresistible leads. Essentially a passion plea for the Oscars to recognize stunt work as its own awards category, The Fall Guy convincingly makes the case that the behind the scenes crews are truly what makes our favourite blockbusters shine.

It’s hard to think of a better time at the movies.

Babes

No film at SXSW that we’ve seen to date had a more rapturous reaction than Pamela Adlon’s Babes. The beloved star and co-creator of Better Things makes her feature directorial debut with this raunchy, hilarious, and moving look at pregnancy and the bonds of female friendship.

Co-written and starring Broad City’s Ilana Glazer, Babes focuses on the tight bond between Eden (Glazer) and her bestie Dawn (Michelle Buteau). While Dawn seemingly has her life in order with her loving husband (Hasan Minhaj) and two children, Eden is still enjoying her single life until she accidentally becomes pregnant. With the father now out of the picture, Eden decides to have the baby on her own, setting her off on a wild journey of self-discovery that also puts her relationship with Dawn to the test.

The entire cast shines here, and Glazer and Buteau have a natural and hilarious rapport. It’s easy to believe them as pair as best friends going through it, and Adlon’s breezy directorial touch lets all of the performances shine.

Deep funny and emotional, Babes is the feel-good comedy to beat this year.

Y2K

Kyle Mooney is responsible for some of Saturday Night Live’s most unhinged moments in recent memory, and that “last sketch before 1:00 am” energy permeates throughout Y2K. Directed and co-written by Mooney (alongside Evan Winter), Y2K is a nostalgia-filled apocalyptic comedy about what might have really happened at the turn of the millennium if things had gone as many had feared.

Starring Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, and Rachel Zegler Y2K follows two dweeby young best friends (Martell and Dennison) looking to hook up at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1999. However, things take a deadly turn when the clocks strike 12, leading the few survivors into a bloody battle for their lives.

Half the fun of Y2K is the hilariously over-the-top nature of the threat, which is best left a surprise for now until audiences have a chance to see the film. Filled with wild gore and an endearing young cast (The Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s Julian Dennison remains one of the funniest performers of his generation), Y2K is a nostalgia-filled mash-up of Maximum Overdrive and Can’t Hardly Wait that seems ripe to become a midnight movie classic.

The film loses a bit of steam in the final act as the plot mechanics take over from the film’s overall craziness, but the appearance of an unlikely surprise star kicks things up a notch, leading to a killer ending that will have moviegoers moshing in their seats.