Movie Review - The Outside Story

At first, I thought writer-director Casimir Nozkowski's debut feature was going to be about an agoraphobic person living in Brooklyn, not unlike Joe Wright's The Woman in the Window (2021). Instead, the film is about a guy who mostly works from his apartment. He has no real anxiety or fear about leaving his place. He simply doesn't because he's probably what most would describe as a homebody. As such, the majority of the film is about appreciating the things beyond one's own domicile and interacting with one's neighbors. Nozkowski also is pushing this idea of forgiveness and thus not being stuck physically in one place but also psychologically or mentally in one place that perhaps hinders from enjoying relationships with certain people. However, without context or further analysis, forgiveness here comes across as a blanket statement or a hollow one that doesn't reckon with accountability or true understanding.

Brian Tyree Henry (Godzilla vs. Kong and Widows) stars as Charles Young, an editor who puts together videos that are in memoriam of deceased celebrities. He's also a documentary filmmaker who has been working on a documentary for five years. The main thing we know about him is that he recently broke up with his girlfriend. The entire film takes place all in one day and Charles is depressed because it's the day that his girlfriend is moving. An incident occurs that causes him to get locked out of his apartment, so the entire story is about his attempts to get back inside, as well as his encounters with the people who live in his building and neighborhood.

Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery and The Walking Dead) co-stars as Isha, a lawyer who is the aforementioned girlfriend of Charles or rather ex-girlfriend. What we learn in flashback is that she kissed another person and almost had sex with that person. This upset Charles so much that he broke up with her. We don't know that he broke up with her. The film cuts away before we see the fallout. Yet, we're supposed to understand that she made a mistake and wasn't having some torrid love affair. She's apologetic. Yet, Charles won't forgive her.

In terms of the relationship between Charles and Isha, this is all we get. For the purposes of this film, which is told exclusively from Charles' point-of-view, this is enough, but what was perhaps needed is something akin to Darien Sills-Evans' One Bedroom (2019), a film that's also about an African-American couple in New York City who break up and the whole film essentially occurs on the day that the girlfriend is moving her stuff out. Sills-Evans' film is more of an examination of their relationship. Nozkowski's film has no such examination. The film brushes over the fact that Isha kissed another person, which would be fine, if the other person wasn't also a woman.

Now, I am of the belief that simply because a person engages in same-sex activity whether it's something as innocuous as a kiss and even up to actual intercourse doesn't mean that the person who did it is lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer. It's especially the case, if the person only did so once and has no desire to do so again or as a matter of record never has done so again. This is in fact my argument against the protagonist in Moonlight (2016) being termed or described as gay. This might also be the case for Isha, but this film never devotes enough or really any time to parsing that aspect about her.

This wouldn't be so bad, if the film had given us anything more about the relationship between Charles and Isha. The only thing we get is a meet-cute between them at a party. It's a scene that's probably about a minute in length, which isn't that much to infer what their relationship was between then and the moment that Isha kisses another woman. Based on what Isha says, the kiss wasn't just a peck on the cheek. She said she "made out" with this other woman. She said she was drunk, but that shouldn't and often doesn't negate the action or excuse away what must have been some same-sex attraction. If it had been Charles who made out with another guy, most would then question his sexuality. It's not to say that they would be correct in any assumption but the fact that the question isn't even asked feels disingenuous.

This could be based or inspired by something that happened in Nozkowski's real-life. However, no examination of the same-sex kiss or further exploration of it feels like tokenism of LGBTQ representation. What helps is that later in the film, Charles just happens to run into the woman whom Isha kissed, a woman of color named Grace, as well as her partner, Inez, played by Asia Kate Dillon who is a nonbinary actor. Nozkowski does take a moment to allow the two queer characters to delve a bit into their relationship. Later, Nozkowski introduces a polyamorous relationship, a threesome or triad, which includes Andre, played by Michael Cyril Creighton (Game Night and Spotlight). Andre appears to be pansexual or fluid. The film allows a couple of scenes where Andre gets to express himself in his polyamorous relationship, which is helpful.

However, it doesn't counteract the problem that is not getting enough about Charles and Isha's relationship and the inciting incident that broke them up. This would be fine, if the film didn't feel like it had to culminate in the question of Charles and Isha reuniting or not. The majority of the film is Charles interacting with his neighbors and whatnot. Most of his significant interactions involve women of various ages, including a police officer who is about his age, another is a little girl who lives in the apartment above him and the other is an elderly woman who lives in the building adjacent. Those moments are well played, especially when it comes to Henry's performance who is able to wield a range of emotions, including a tearful one that is very effective. Henry proves that he can lead a film and should lead more.

Not Rated but contains mild language and sexual situations.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 25 mins.

Available on Hulu.