• IFC Films
• Biosphere

BIOSPHERE
More than a decade after co-starring in the brilliant Humpday, co-writer/co-star Mark Duplass—with co-writer Mel Eslyn making her feature directing debut—returns to similar territory exploring masculinity and male friendships in this funky sci-fi comedy. In the aftermath of an environmental catastrophe, former U.S. president Billy (Duplass) and his lifelong best friend/science advisor Ray (Sterling K. Brown) are living together in a sealed environment of Ray's creation, believing themselves to be the last people on earth. A problem with their home's food-creation system inspires a potential existential crisis, except that—as Billy notes while quoting Jurassic Park—life finds a way. The details are best left discovered rather than explained, though Duplass and Eslyn drop enough hints early on to suggest where the story is going. The pleasures here, however, aren't all about stuff that could be revealed in spoilers, but in how that story digs into so many interesting ideas: how deeply internalized homophobia can be; the way buddy-comedy bromances shape our notions of male connection; how much of our gender identity is in our heads vs. in our groins. Most impressively, the filmmakers take on those notions without ever feeling like it's a lecture, finding great awkward comedy in two terrific performances. A central metaphor that tries to link an openness about life's mysteries to magic feels somewhat forced, but Biosphere proves wise and funny while wondering if our very survival depends on re-thinking what it means to be a man. Available July 7 in theaters and via VOD. (R)

• Lionsgate Films
• Joy Ride

JOY RIDE
While this is clearly a "your mileage may vary" dynamic, it almost always feels like a miscalculation to me when a movie adopts the American Pie paradigm of "make the raunchiest comedy possible, but also try to be excruciatingly sincere." This one opens in suburban Washington State circa 1998, where Audrey and Lolo—the only two Asian kids in their class—meet and become best friends. Twenty-five years later, attorney Audrey (Ashley Park) and artist Lolo (Sherry Cola) are still pals, and heading off on a trip together to China, where adoptee Audrey might unexpectedly find herself meeting her birth mother. Audrey and Lolo are joined on their journey by Lolo's cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey's college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), and the complicated interactions between the foursome do generate plenty of guffaws. But while director Adele Lim and her screenwriting team go all-out to earn their R rating—over-the-top sex scenes, labia tattoos, mass drug consumption and more—they also want to dive into issues of identity surrounding race, class and sexuality that go beyond creating conflict between their main characters. One of the big late developments sets up a scene almost engineered in a lab to be a tear-jerker, yet it feels terribly out of place considering everything that has preceded it. If there's a movie that has found a comfortable fit between emotional string-pulling and labia tattoos, I guess I just haven't found it yet. Available July 7 in theaters. (R)

• Bleecker Street Films
• The Lesson

THE LESSON
There's a certain brand of slippery, twisty psychological drama that depends entirely on you buying into the plot machinations—and this one tries to tie things up with an assumption that just makes no sense at all. It's the story of Liam Sommers (Daryl McCormack), an aspiring writer who takes a job at the estate of his literary idol, novelist J.M. Sinclair (Richard E. Grant), to tutor Sinclair's son Bertie (Stephen McMillan) in preparation for college entrance exams. But as Liam tries to complete his long-gestating debut novel, he also gets tangled up in Sinclair's work on his own long-awaited comeback after a family tragedy. Sinclair's wife Hélène (Julie Delpy) is also part of the equation, and first-time feature screenwriter Alex MacKeith attempts to build a sense of mystery involving the relationships between the characters. But while Grant does a great job with his chewy role as a narcissistic artist, McCormack makes Liam far too enigmatic, so that it's hard to get a handle on how he feels about anyone (including himself). Mostly, though, it's a narrative built on writerly contrivances like Liam's photographic memory for any text he reads, all building up to a climax that's predicated on treating a character's choice as inevitable, when it feels like anything but. Director Alice Troughton finds the right tone mixing elegance with low-key menace, but it's hard to get past a "betcha didn't see that coming" ending where the appropriate response seems to be, "and why should we have?" Available July 7 in theaters. (R)