Zero Charisma is one of the best films about “nerd culture” yet

While almost every aspect of “nerd” culture from comics to video games has by now been co-opted into mainstream acceptance, the world of role playing games is still seen as the final bastion for the true basement-dwelling geek. Apart from Larpers, there is likely no member of the nerd universe as pitied as the one brandishing a twelve-sided die.

Zero Charisma will do little to change that impression, although it does shine a light on the often misunderstood motivations of these committed table-top fiends.

The film centers on Scott (Sam Eidson), an aging metal-head who lives with his grandmother in Austin. As the Dungeon Master of his self-devised role playing game, he spends every waking moment designing new plot points and schematics for his team to play through, at the expense of essentially everything else in his life. However, while his team is 3 years-deep into the epic quest he has spun, they suddenly lose a member of the group to the hitherto foreign notion of “girlfriend issues”.

Unfortunately for Scott, his attempts to recruit a replacement member are hindered by his well-known bouts of jealousy and anger, which have alienated him from his fellow local nerds to the point where he is even derided by his previous co-workers at the local role-playing shop. While making a delivery to the shop from his job at Donut Taco Palace (only in Austin), he meets Miles, a Geek-chic hipster looking for a new role playing group to join.

Miles runs a popular pop-culture website, and immediately entrances Scott’s crew with his humble brags about snowboarding with Joss Whedon and creating his own comic. Even more unacceptable to Scott, is his constant wisecracking and attempts to subvert the rules of Scott’s game. After all, Miles argues, isn’t the game supposed to be fun?

Things come to a head for Scott when the game is moved to Miles’ trendy apartment, where he encounters Miles’ beautiful girlfriend, with nary a decrepit grandmother in sight. When Scott eventually demands that his fellow players choose between him and Miles, their choice is obvious, sending Scott on a Taxi Driver-esque downward spiral.

When Scott brands Miles as his nemesis, it’s because Miles seems to have everything too easy. He hasn’t spent his lunch breaks drawing out in-depth dungeon maps in the parking lot of a combined donut / taco restaurant. He hasn’t suffered for his nerd obsession the way Scott has, devoting his every waking moment to the mastery of something that seemingly comes so naturally to Miles. To Miles, role-playing is a fun diversion from indie-rock shows and his live-in girlfriend, while to Scott, of course, it is everything.

The feature debut of Austin filmmakers Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews, Zero Charisma is on the surface a comedy about geeky Dungeons & Dragons devotees, but the film actually exposes a darker truth about obsession, and the harsh impact it can have when you devote your life to any one outlet, even one as inoffensive as role playing.

This is not to say that Zero Charisma is joyless, even with all of Scott’s cringe-worthy awkward moments. The entire supporting cast are uniformly great, and the decades-old mystery of whether the Millennium Falcon is faster than the Starship Enterprise is even unequivocally solved during one of their geek debates (hint: Roddenberry fans, prepare to be disappointed).

Zero Charisma manages the difficult task of humanizing those who choose to devote their free time to the perusal of the inhuman. That it does so with so much humour and compassion is what makes it ultimately so memorable.

Zero Charisma will be released on demand on October 8 and in select theatres beginning on October 11.