Rendered with the broad strokes of an overstated stage drama, the new surrealist comedy from Quentin Dupieux is light and largely uneventful. Despite running a mere 78 minutes, it plays like an outstretched initial draft of something potentially much more meaningful, centering on the rocky relationship between the nearly sixty-year-old Phillip Doom (Woody Harrelson) and his thirty-something daughter Madeline (Kristen Stewart) on a reparative trip to Paris.
Dupieux, his own cinematographer as usual, captures the duo’s sprawling hotel suite in bright, luxurious hues, which makes it all the more amusing when Phillip draws strict lines about whose side is whose. Although Phillip has organized the vacation for them to reconnect, Madeline — a seeming glutton — only seems to want to chomp down on decadent room service while watching a 1950s “Creature from the Black Lagoon”-style sci-fi throwback on her portable DVD player.
Scenes from this film-within-a-film play out in full, and feature Emma Mackey as a damsel escaping a hungry, humanoid fish creature, while a pair of mad scientists, played by comedy duo Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, attempt to study the ravenous creature. There are parallels to be found between the monster’s hunger and Madeline’s appetite, as well as between its domineering presence and that of Phillip, who hovers over his daughter with excessive rules, but once you spot these themes, they don’t meaningfully evolve.
A few typically Dupieux-like oddities do emerge, like a misunderstanding leading to enthusiastic hotel employee Lucie (Charlotte Le Bon) keeping an uncomfortably close eye on Phillip, lest he lose his temper. Eventually, Phillip’s belly begins to engorge the more his Madeline imbibes culinary delicacies, gesturing towards an interesting facet of late parenthood by mirroring a father adopting his daughter’s gastronomic debts the way he might bear the brunt of her emotional burdens. However, by the time these connections come to light, too much effort has been spent capturing both lead actors (otherwise masters of their craft) engaging in repetitive dialogue that lives on the surface, and leaves little room for mischievous subtext, even as they exchange witty barbs.
The story threatens to fly off the rails when the duo is forced to wade through ongoing, fiery protests just to get to dinner, but this ends up a mere jab at the Parisian social fabric from afar (at best, it’s about the ignorance of American tourists), resulting in little by way of enjoyable or illuminating political contrast with the movie’s familiar woes. Few of the film’s ideas truly connect with one another, leaving its lead stars adrift in the process, forcing them to conjure three dimensional details from a script that, intentionally or otherwise, feels paper thin.
To say that “Full Phil” eventually finds its soul would be overstating things, but it does — by the time it mercifully concludes — eventually present its characters as living, breathing human beings with a shared past and a complex relationship. But we’re talking about the final few minutes here, up to which point it’s just a tale of a father and daughter swimming in circles and treading water.
On one hand, there’s perhaps no more honest depiction of a relationship between a parent and their adult child having hit a wall, and a point of no return. On the other hand, pushing against this inevitability is a much more intriguing concept than simply presenting it as-is, over and over again, even when its specifics are disguised by a fable.
Grade: C+
“Full Phil” premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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