Nothing (film)

Plot

The film tells the story of two good friends and housemates, Andrew, an agoraphobic travel agent, and Dave, a loser who works in an office. Dave is fired from his job after his girlfriend frames him for embezzlement, Andrew is falsely accused of attempted child molestation, and their house is to be demolished by day's end. Both of them hide inside the house as police, city officials, and outraged neighbors surround it. Dave and Andrew open their front door and discover that the entire world beyond their house is gone, replaced with a featureless white void.

Eventually, after a simple test reveals that the nothingness surrounding them holds a flat, featureless, and somewhat springy surface "like tofu", they set out across the empty plane in order to explore their new surroundings, leaving items behind as a means of getting back. After running out of items to leave as a trail, they lose track of their path. Wandering leads them to what appears to be another house, but they have simply wandered back home.

Panic begins to set in again when Andrew realizes that the house is completely out of food. Andrew glances around the room, eventually stopping and glaring at a noisy clock on the wall; within a few seconds it disappears. Andrew drops a stack of overdue bills in front of Dave, and within seconds the bills abruptly disappear. Dave puts one last theory to test, managing to hate away his need for food.

Dave still expresses some concern over Andrew's remaining phobias, questioning why the phobias still exist when there is nothing left to fear. Reluctantly, Andrew reveals that he was abused and tormented by his parents as a child. With some urging from Dave he hates away the memory of each traumatic childhood event as he recounts it; when he is finally done he is no longer phobic and much more confident in himself. Unfortunately this change alters Andrew's personality and leads to friction between the two friends, finally building into an outright confrontation. They decide they can no longer share the same house, and opt to determine who keeps it by playing a match of their favorite fighting game. Dave loses, and is exiled with his possessions to reside out in the nothingness.

Things become very tense with Dave's departure. Dave attempts to engage Andrew in conversation repeatedly, even performing the national anthem for his self-created nation (its borders marked by a line of his possessions), all to no avail. After several days Dave comes into Andrew's house much happier and explains his sudden change of mood: he has hated away his anger at Andrew; all Andrew needs to do is hate away his anger at Dave and things will be back to normal. Andrew refuses, quite content to be angry at Dave. Dave hates away his anger several times as Andrew rebuffs and outright insults him, but his patience finally wears thin, leading Dave to hate away one of Andrew's possessions. Andrew retaliates by hating away one of Dave's possessions, and the situation escalates until everything including the house is hated away.

Dave walks away, assuming the argument is finished, but falls over suddenly as his feet begin to disappear; Andrew is hating them away. He turns and retaliates, hating away Andrew's legs, and the situation escalates again until all that is left of the two are their disembodied heads. Refusing to give up the fight, Andrew and Dave manage to turn themselves and (by bouncing) charge at each other, headbutting each other repeatedly until they finally stop, exhausted. Their anger abated, Dave and Andrew make up, agree to be best friends again, and set off to explore the nothingness. As they bounce away into the white void they remark how they both had always thought that their bodies were somehow holding them back.

In a post-credits scene, an obviously older Dave and Andrew – still disembodied heads – are sleeping when they are awakened by a popping sound, followed by a loud clamoring of voices and noise. As the unseen source of the clamoring gets louder and closer the two scream.

Cast

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 50% of six surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 6/10.

Film critic Dan Schneider called Nothing "not a bad film", but "not good either", remarking that "its essential silliness and triviality are what keep this from reaching the existential level of a good The Twilight Zone episode, or something more akin to George Lucas's THX 1138." Schneider also criticized the soundtrack, arguing that "the film would have been much more effective if the music had suggested darker undertones." He concluded his review saying, "Nothing is one of those films that will stick with a viewer for a while, if only because it will leave scenarios open to be reworked in each viewer's mind."