The Martian then observes human pain:
"Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room
with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises
alone. No one is exempt
and everyone’s pain has a different smell."
Alien Jennifer has a similar experience. She watches Vanessa's various emotional explosions and attempts to understand what the heck is going on with this strange being. Vanessa is totally thrown off by alien Jennifer looking exactly like the real Jennifer. In a way, she almost doesn't care that alien Jennifer is an alien. It is just so good to be in her friend's presence again. Vanessa mourns the past, but she's also mourning the future, the future she now will not have. She and Jennifer won't grow old together. The time they had together was all they would have.
A couple of other characters show up periodically in "I'm Totally Fine," most notably "Deejay Twisted" (Harvey Guillén), hired for the canceled party. Vanessa forgot to cancel the Deejay, so he arrives in a glow-in-the-dark jacket, bearing a stash of Molly, beaming a huge non-judgmental smile. Hosting a dance party for just two people? No problem! He's happy as long as he's getting paid.
Bell, who came out of improv, brings the improviser's quick wit, emotional depth, and sense of reality, to whatever she does. Witness 2019's "Brittany Runs a Marathon." In "I'm Totally Fine," her emotional distress is real and extremely touching. But her sense of humor is irrepressible, and her line readings are on point. She turns down a Xanax offered by a party planner, acting extremely offended at the presumption, but then mid-sentence changes her mind and says, "Yeah, okay, I'll have one." Her performance is full of details like this, and humor is often in the details.
Morales is very funny playing a literal-minded alien who is immune to social niceties, has no sense of humor, has to practice smiling, and is extremely distracted by the sensation of having eyebrows. Alien Jennifer has a journey to go on too, but it is through Bell we get the friendship, we get the backstory, and ... we can feel all that has been lost.
"I'm Totally Fine" is a gentle relationship-focused film, and its sci-fi trappings are an "excuse" to explore a very important topic in amusing and insightful ways.
Now playing in theaters and on digital platforms.
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