‘Outerlands’ Review: A Slow-Burn Nonbinary Drama Set in a Changing San Francisco

variety.com:

Siddhant Adlakha Elena Oxman’s “Outerlands” is a film of great cinematic sleight of hand. The withdrawn San Francisco drama, about lonely nonbinary nanny and restaurant server Cass (Asia Kate Dillon), is simple in its presentation, but disguises numerous layers to its story.

These eventually unravel, and build to an emotional wallop. When work crush Kalli (Louisa Krause) suddenly leaves town, Cass is placed in charge of her quiet but headstrong 11-year-old daughter, Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman).

The longer Kalli stays away, the more Cass is forced to reckon not just with the possibility that Ari has been abandoned, but with their own childhood abandonment, which continues to ripple in the present.

This straightforward plot is often broken up by poetic interludes, made up of languid shots of a changing cityscape. Once a bustling queer capital, the inequality plaguing San Francisco has reached something of a breaking point.