“Let me know when you’ve received your gift,” Jas, an online acquaintance of Becca (Katarina Zhu) writes in a note tucked into a box in “Bunnylvr” that the recipient might have trepidation about even before discovering the present is a live white rabbit. Becca has enough trouble taking care of herself, let alone another living creature and is eager to return the bunny back to sender, though she isn’t aware of an address or even really a name when Jas is short for Jas95, a benefactor from an online cam site that she spends her off-hours on earning extra cash. It’s indicative of nearly every other relationship in her life that even the good things that come into it are a burden to her and like all the others, she can’t in good conscience cut herself off, feeling as if she owes everyone else something though a feeling of debt, financial and otherwise, is crushing her.
Unlike the box opened by her onscreen alter ego, Zhu, who wrote and directed “Bunnylvr” in addition to starring in it, has delivered a welcome surprise with her debut feature, a deceptively breezy character study that carries considerable weight. Although Becca is a cam girl, that isn’t how she’s feeling exploited, actually enjoying the sense of power that comes with moderating the chat and turning the camera on and off as she wants. Instead, the feeling of being used comes in other quarters – from her long estranged father (Perry Yung), who randomly catches her in the street and insists upon her being a good luck charm as he plays cards in Chinatown, her hard-to-read ex Carter (Jack Kilmer), who would still like a place in her life as a friend with benefits, and her one true friend Bella (Rachel Sennott), whose success in the art world may quietly bug her when she’s had to put aside her own ambitions, though she willingly models for her paintings. Still, she can’t ever get away from feeling as if she’s disappointed everyone when they all demand her time in addition to a soul-killing actuary job, making the burgeoning relationship she has with Jas (Austin Amelio) intriguing beyond the money he can throw into private shows when there’s no baggage there.
The innocent white bunny Jas sends is a none-too-subtle reflection of its new owner, who is asked to perform increasingly more perverse activities with it (though not in a sexual sense) to satisfy her new sugar daddy’s fetish. There’s a palpable sense of danger to the scenes, less because of any threat to the rabbit’s well-being than to Becca in having to navigate whether she should push back, clearly running into issues in every direction when she doesn’t stand up for herself and worse, feel it’s not an option. Zhu has an exquisite eye for such uncomfortable moments to reveal something less obviously bothersome than what’s bound to grab your attention, staging at one point a bout of aggressive sex with Carter where it isn’t any playful slapping that’s an issue, but nonetheless Becca gets painfully poked in the eye when the whole encounter is something she’s going along with rather than enjoy. Sex in general isn’t anything Becca gets too hung up on, nor does the film as it thoughtfully considers how her thoughts have been warped by having all activities reduced to transactions and any individual self-worth is hard to come by.
Although “Bunnylvr” may promise something more risqué than it delivers as far as titillation, the restraint seems just as daring when Zhu trusts Becca’s internal crisis to be involving enough without any sensationalism. Rawness is mostly a virtue here, though aesthetically at times it may fit a little too comfortably within an indie house style. What makes the difference is Zhu not equating authenticity with tragedy when Becca is only threatened with death by a thousand cuts, all brought into sharp relief by the multihyphenate’s tenderness both in front of and behind the camera. In exploring the power of anonymity for better or worse, Zhu makes a real name for herself.
“Bunnylovr” will screen once more at the Sundance Film Festival on January 30th at 5:20 pm at the Megaplex Redstone. It is also available to stream from January 30th through February 2nd via the Sundance virtual platform.