“Finding a good job, that’s hard,” remarks Fox (Will Madden) in “Love and Work,” which would be true under any circumstances, but particularly in the world he finds himself in in Pete Ohs’ enchanting comedy. Labor of any kind has been outlawed when there is no longer a need for more products with the world already filled with them, leading Fox to sit outside a law enforcement facility with Diane (Stephanie Hunt) after they’ve both been arrested for daring to work a 9 to 5 to pass the time. You wouldn’t think the two live in abundance, with the streets often empty in the small town where they reside, but even if there were distractions, you suspect they’d still be inclined to busy themselves with some kind of task when it’s just how they’re wired and while sharing a work ethic may put them on the brink of being sent to solitary confinement, there’s an argument to be made that they’d be there already without it.
Although the monochrome world Fox and Diane inhabit would seem to bear little resemblance to the one we currently live in, “Love and Work” can’t help but remind of a present where the growth of remote work has fundamentally limited opportunities for social interaction beyond an immediate circle of friends and family and the need for employment has exceeded the need for human labor. Ohs, who has had a penchant for tackling big ideas on a small scale since his directorial debut (with Andrea Sisson), the post-apocalyptic survival story “Everything Beautiful is Far Away” that starred Julia Garner, Joseph Cross and a robot staving off loneliness in the desert, turns any anxiety into a fizzy energy between Fox and Diane, who first meet in an abandoned building making shoes. No one, including their boss Hank (Frank Mosley), is thinking about who will wear them, but it suits them all just fine until a pair of inspectors in safety vests show up to lay down the law and while Diane keeps her cards close to the vest, not even divulging her name to Fox until they’ve both been booked, the two start to look out for one another, intent on evading authority while they continue to look for work.
Although Ohs continues to make the most out of limited resources — as his own editor and cinematographer, the compositions and the cuts couldn’t be sharper or more engaging with a pair of endearing leads at its center, bringing Madden’s brother Danny, director of “Beast Beast,” along for the film’s intricate sound design — what’s more impressive is the economy of the storytelling. Never getting caught up in any mythology to justify the surreal set-up, instead relying lightly on a “Big Lebowski”-esque omniscient narrator, and allowing the superficial distinctions between Fox and Diane fall away to reveal shared desires, the film keeps it simple and gently subverts both notions of work and narrative tropes to inspire thinking about things in a slightly different way, being quite provocative in asking why we’re drawn to certain familiar things while resisting others. Still, Ohs makes clear that while “Love and Work” is after something serious, to consider it too deeply would be a mistake when it should be enjoyed rather than analyzed to death and at a breezy 74 minutes, the film is a welcome diversion, which by its own standards is what anyone should want out of life.
“Love and Work” does not yet have U.S. distribution.
