Sightlines · a viewing thread

When Love Gets High-Concept

Watch these when you want a love story with a speculative or absurdist hook — an AI girlfriend, an afterlife way-station, a reanimated corpse, a marriage under siege — comedies that use a wild premise to say something real about coupling.

A grab-bag of cult objects and buzzy oddities rather than settled canon — mostly accessible and fun, with Companion the sharpest and most violent, and several unproven 2026 titles; low commitment, high novelty.

• Companion (2025)
• Eternity (2025)
• Lisa Frankenstein (2024)
• The Drama (2026)
• The Invite (2026)
• Palm Springs (2020) — The overlooked time-loop romance that rhymes with these on using an impossible premise to ask what commitment means — Nyles and Sarah trapped repeating one desert wedding is Companion's warmth without the violence, the one to finally pull down if Eternity's afterlife-as-relationship-test landed.
• Fresh (2022) — If Companion's charming-partner-turned-predator twist landed, this is the recent one to pull down next — a produce-aisle meet-cute with a normal, funny guy that curdles into a genre premise about how monstrous modern dating can get.
• Don't Worry Darling (2022) — The thread's 'marriage under siege' hook made literal — a picture-perfect 1950s town that's secretly a constructed simulation — so if Companion's reveal about a manufactured relationship hooked you, this buzzy oddity rhymes with it.