Hippo examines the coming-of-age of two step-siblings: Hippo, a video-game addicted teenager and Buttercup, a Hungarian Catholic immigrant with a love of classical music and Jesus. Like the Ancient Greek Aphrodite, Buttercup’s love is unrequited by a brother who prefers to indulge the art of war and chaos. The result is a hormone-fueled, tragicomic waking nightmare that must be seen to be believed.
Mark H. Rapaport's comedy drama, Hippo, is coming the theaters on November 12th. Hippo premiered at Fantasia last Summer, where Josh and I caught it. I couldn't quite explain what I had witnessed at the time, but Josh could, which is why he reviewed it and has been quoted in the official trailer. Take a look for yourself down below and see if Hippo is up your alley.
Rapaport co-wrote Hippo with star Kimball Farley. Farley starred with Lilla Kizlinger, Eliza Roberts, and Jesse Pimentel. Eric Roberts narrated the feature.
Here are just some of Josh's thoughts in his review.
It is difficult to explain the allure of Hippo without simply listing the dozens of increasingly strange set pieces and actions that comprise its bewildering story. Imagine if Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth took place in late ‘90s midwestern suburbia. They incorporate the isolationism of Covid quarantine anxiety, the contemporaneous fears brought on by the Columbine school shooting massacre, put a John Waters-esque spin on the angular familial relationships in Napoleon Dynamite, and do it all in the style of a horrific Wes Anderson film shot in stark monochrome.It’s a mind fuck of a movie, filled with uncomfortable laughs, ludicrous characters, and if that wasn’t enough, it is topped off with a soupcon of narration from the one and only Eric Roberts. Hippo is America’s answer to Dogtooth, and it’s wonderful.