Seven years after collaborating on The Plagiarists, writers James N. Kienitz and Robin Schavoir return with The Misconceived—another incisive, inventive movie about the anxieties faced by the never-quite-made-it creative class. Directed by Peter Parlow, that earlier film played with the tropes of found-footage horror to tell a story about untested urban liberalism and the dual tyrannies of artistic authenticity and writer’s block. The Misconceived—described in press notes as an acidic satire and more than lives up to that corrosive billing—is a little harsh on the eyes, but it swims in similarly rich thematic waters and doesn’t skimp on formal experimentations.
The movie, which focuses on the renovation of a house in upstate New York, is itself a reconstruction of sorts—it was created using Unreal, the graphics engine used to render popular open-world video games like Hogwarts Legacy and the recent Final Fantasy VII remake. If the intention here is to have some fun while also making Kienitz and Schavoir’s perennially disappointed characters feel even more like NPCs in their own lives: mission accomplished.
Indeed, for such unreality, this story’s emotions are all too real. Its protagonist, Tyler (John Magary), is the kind of guy who might describe himself as a writer who also does some work as a handyman—even if you just know, in his heart of hearts, he puts them the other way around. The Misconceived duly plops him into a reliably emasculating situation: only after showing up with his work crew does Tyler realize that his new employer, Tobin (Jesse Wakeman), is a former college roommate—a sculpture artist with a cheerier disposition and an upcoming spot at the Whitney Biennial, to boot. For the most part, The Misconceived doesn’t build towards a conflict or resolution—Tobin is mostly supportive and has plenty hang-ups of his own, including a slightly chilly relationship with his wife. Instead, it simply allows the appearance of a more successful contemporary to fan the flames of Tyler’s feelings of inadequacy. “I’m at the time in my life,” he explains at one point, trying to not look too crestfallen, “where I’ve gotta put survival first.”
This, of course, is fertile ground for Kienitz and Schavoir to work with: across The Misconceived‘s 88 minutes, which mostly play out during working hours and takes us some way towards the house’s completion, the filmmakers allow their characters to bounce off each other—sometimes genially, usually not—in a series of dialogue-dense sequences that are either caustically funny or just downright caustic. Whether the video-game-cut-scene vibes outstay their welcome will depend on the viewer’s tastes—I must say that, without a great deal of wide shots, they got a little repetitive after a while, but the film makes enough interesting choices to keep things moving. To wit: while Tobin and Tyler are motion-captured in the usual way, other characters, like a foul-mouthed younger colleague named Mikey [Jess Barbagallo], are rendered to look like cartoons.
The Misconceived premiered in IFFR’s Harbour sidebar, the Dutch festival’s home for more adventurous fare. This felt like the right place for it—even if the LantarenFenster Kino’s usually welcome tendency to crank the volume left me a little wind-blasted by Kienitz and Schavoir’s restless screenplay. Soaking up the movie’s look and its winking, cine-literate dialogue (filmmakers mentioned include the Safdies and Sean Baker, and even Richard Brody’s name gets dropped with a nice little Francophile flourish) I was reminded of Richard Linklater’s Waking Life—a similarly verbose if less-pessimistic movie, albeit one from a decidedly less-pessimistic time. Mileage may vary, but there are some similarly cosmic things to take from The Misconceived. Just don’t expect reassurance to be among them.
The Misconceived premiered at the 2026 International Film Festival Rotterdam.