SXSW 2013 Review: ‘Zero Charisma’

A few weeks ago we had filmmakers Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews on the show to talk about their SXSW film Zero Charisma, the story of a tabletop RPG obsessed 20-something living with his grandmother who begins to lose control of his gaming group (and more) when a new table member threatens to sway his carefully crafted social order. At the time, I didn’t know Katie and Andrew, and they didn’t know me, but I really responded to the sincerity, and humor, of the Zero Charisma trailer and wanted to help them with their IndieGogo campaign to finish the film before the premiere. Sure, I had fears that most trailers are better than their actual films and that Zero Charisma might follow in a long line of indie films about our geek culture, and specifically the tRPG sub-culture, that have missed the mark. And every single one of them, from The Gamers to Role Models, have missed that mark, choosing the safety of goofing on the film’s subjects to actually compelling the audience to feel for them.

And not to say that it’s an easy temptation to avoid. We geeks and our and social idiosyncrasies are so particular that it’s just easier to point a camera at what’s loud and funny than what’s true. We spend so much time in fantasy (especially when tabletop roleplaying is concerned), that it’s almost always more appealing to narrate the fantasy of our lives than the oftentimes painful inadequacies underneath. But something in the trailer for Zero Charisma and its anger possessed main character of Scott, told me that Katie and Andrew’s film might just avoid those trappings and get right to the heart of the cultural and social re-appropriations that fantasy culture is all about. Going in to the film’s premiere on Monday night, and as the lights dimmed in the theater, I had hope (for all us geeks).

I’m happy to report that my hope in Zero Charisma was beyond well placed. Katie, Andrew and company knocked this one out of the park. Before there was even an image on screen, the music hit and I knew I was in good hands. The first thing that you hear is shrieking fantasy metal. I let out a loud “fuck yes” (which most at the after party admitted to hearing… sorry!). I’m a huge Luca Turilli and Rhapsody fan and the music that starts Zero Charisma off was right in line with the heavy metal songs of wizards and fantasy that inhabit his music. I even let out another shout when an extra in the film wore a Rhapsody shirt later on. The movie opened up and there was Scott, alone and head banging down a grocery aisle stocking up on snacks for his gaming like a playable character would on questing supplies. The journey was about to begin and I was thrilled knowing that I was in good hands.

The actual plot of Zero Charisma is simple. Scott lives with his grandmother and runs a tabletop RPG a few times a week for his similarly geeky group of friends. He invests everyting into the game and the experience he is creating. So when one of the longtime players drops out, it leaves Scott (and his sidekick Wayne), searching for a replacement. They find their fifth player in Miles, a hipster geek who is just looking for a group of guys to play with. Miles brings beers (and levity) to their first game, and quickly becomes its most popular and successful member and Scott’s alpha grip on the game begins to erode. Scrambling to keep the script that he’s written for everyone else on track, Scott wrestles to take back control and things go from bad to worse.

 And that’s what Katie and Andrew got the most right: the personal nature of who we are. The group of gamers are a surrogate for Scott’s powerless role in a family that doesn’t really exist. His father is non-existent and his mother abandoned him long ago to move out of state. His Grandmother has had to look out for him long past the expiration date on his social maturation and he is angry. The failings of others in his life, and subsequently the excuses that have led to his own, have turned Scott into a short fuse who doesn’t see the dangers in scripting friend’s lives or trying to control others. From the opening metal music, he is both alone and ready to explode and watching newcomer Sam Eidson portray him is awesome. Sam’s not an actor playing a geek. He is a geek, and he gets the pain that makes our lots in life so compelling and Katie and Andrew don’t avoid going there. In fact, they go there a lot.

Other reviewers have said that when Scott’s mother shows up halfway through the film, that it feels like a plot device, because she only shows up to complicate things for Scott and his grandmother. I think those viewers need to re-role their Perception checks because you don’t need to hit a 20 to realize how wrong this is. The very antagonist of Scott’s fantasy quest is The Goblin Queen, a shadowy matriarch of a dark kingdom who rules from a distant tower. He’s enlisted his friends in helping him destroy the Queen and when that obsessive goal is challenged by Miles “just wanting to have fun”, Scott’s fuse is lit. Everything Scott does in the film is informed by the pain he feels towards his mother’s abandonment, and her showing up only makes a bad situation worse as he scrambles for a way to cope with a rapidly deteriorating social order that he had only a fabricated control of in the first place. Andrew’s script is fantastic on a character level and I urged he and Katie to continue Scott’s story in whatever other ways they could.

I know I’ve given a pretty serious review for a movie that is being showcased as a comedy. And I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Zero Charisma is hilarious. The crowd responded vocally to the many jokes in the film and I watched it in a constant state of losing my shit laughing. If I hadn’t had to return to Los Angeles, I would have caught the rest of the screenings in Austin, I am that obsessed with the film. I even B-lined it for the filmmakers and gave them a hug for how incredibly moving the movie is. It just does so many things right in regards to a subject matter that we care so much about (almost similar to Scott’s obsession!). From skewering hipsters for their misappropriation of Geek culture (that scene in amazing) to our intensely passionate debates (like if the USS Enterprise is faster than the Millennium Falcon), Zero Charisma does everything right. The comedy flies pretty frequently but never at the expense of what makes Zero Charisma work the most: its sincerity.

As I said to Katie and Andrew Monday night, I’ve been attending the SXSW Film Festival since it began playing films in 1994 and this is one of my favorite SXSW films that I’d ever seen. But beyond that, and probably more importantly, Zero Charisma is one of the best Geek culture films of all time. We will definitely be championing it here on Geekscape. Come to think of it, I can’t think of a quest more worthy of the undertaking.