Sundance 2026 Review: SOFT BOIL, Anxiety and Cringe Collide in an Acid Quarter-Life Crisis Rom-Com

The pilot episode of Soft Boil, directed by Alec Goldberg, recalls the spirit of Duplass brothers comedy and, in places, brings to mind their dramedy series Togetherness, albeit on a smaller scale.

Lulu (Camille Wormser who also shares the writing credit with Goldberg) is a struggling actress living in Los Angeles. Her day begins on a positive note with her boyfriend, but with acting work scarce, she is interviewing for a nanny position, driving a beat-up car with a missing window. When she returns home early, she find her boyfriend Eric (Patrick Tabari) cheating on her and engaging in what she pronounces as “asphyxication” with “a much sexy girl,” as she makes sure to specify, the day quickly unravels.

Lulu’s friend Jess (Madison Shamoun) suggests a casual hook-up as a way to restore some cosmic balance and improve Lulu’s mood. At a bar, Lulu approaches Mark (John Gemberling), first delivering an unsettling Gollum impression and then inviting him to try “asphyxication.”

What follows includes an awkward post-coital arrangement involving Lulu, Mark, and Jess as an uninvited witness, as well as a brief visit to a clinic for STD testing. Lulu’s life remains in a state of disarray, marked by impulsive decisions and escalating chaos especially with additional revelation about Mark.

While Togetherness focuses on characters closer to middle age, Soft Boil stays firmly rooted in early adulthood, a phase Wormser portrays as even more volatile. She previously starred in the series Before I Got Famous, which also follows aspiring actors navigating the gap between artistic ambition and economic reality.

Wormser has likewise written, directed, and starred in the short film Just Right, which premiered at Slamdance and follows a woman whose daily routine is governed by severe OCD. Among Wormser’s work, Just Right comes closest in tone to Soft Boil, centering on a neurodivergent protagonist.

Soft Boil initially starts as a relationship comedy before quickly veering off course. The pilot could be described as an acid rom-com, though its focus extends beyond romantic entanglements to the broader chaos of early adulthood. It appears to draw from the lineage of Maria Bamford’s comedy, which has helped destigmatize life with mental illness. While Just Right explicitly depicts a protagonist with severe OCD, Wormser’s comedic approach tends toward the physical into exaggerated gestures.

Aspects of Wormser’s Mel character from Just Right resurface in her portrayal of Lulu. Although Soft Boil does not explicitly frame itself as a story about neurodivergent protagonist in the way Bamford’s work addresses mental illness, these impulses shape the pilot’s absurdist and whimsical tone. The influence is significant enough that Soft Boil can be read as a form of neurodivergent comedy, one that challenges a neurotypical perspective and subverts social norms through self-deprecation and absurdity.

Moving slightly away from Bamford’s territory, Soft Boil lands within the current wave of alt and cringe comedy that has increasingly entered the mainstream, most notably through Tim Robinson’s work on I Think You Should Leave and his collaborations with director Andrew DeYoung on The Chair Company and the feature film Friendship. In this light, Soft Boil shows alluring potential, with Wormser pushing her character’s anxiety off the charts in high-intensity comedy, infusing surrealness into a bizarre rom-com crossed with a quarter-life coming-of-age stroy, not unlike how Friendship applied similar strategies to a middle-aged anti-bromance.

The pilot episode screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.