Socially awkward black comedy with occasionally explosive moments of understated humor, The Strongest Man is Kenny Riches‘ follow-up to Must Come Down and his first big festival debut. His surgically shrewd examination of two nobodies stewing in the melting pot of Miami presents a deep and thoughtful metaphysical exploration of life as alien experience with the stonerish tendencies of Jared Hess and the outlandish atmospheres of a dedicated daydreamer.

The Napoleon Dynamite similarities don’t stop here as Riches’ two middling heroes are one dance session away from the buddy-buddy comedy stylings of Hess’ bizarre seminal work. From sharing a bike to snorting unknown substances on the beachfront, Beef (newcomer Robert Lorie) and Conan (Paul Chamberlain) are an odd couple; as physically and mentally ill-matched as Pinkie and the Brain and yet palpably, enormously close to one another.

Their journey through Riches’ story – one that tells of Beef’s slip-and-slide into love, a stolen BMX bike, anxiety monsters and spirit animals – is one of a stunted stuntman. Early on in the film, Beef charges through a series of cement walls for no rhyme or reason. Probably to prove to himself that he could.

Ripples of angst and anguish, of miffed expectations of oneself, of stasis and change, of prevailing alienation, and of cultural misunderstanding rip through this impressionist fable, leaving behind a jumbled pile of thoughts with undeniable meaning and ringing with warranted vitriol. Riches’ shots are as much at art and pedigree as they are of high-rise heiresses and textbook narcissism. Some land better than others. More often than not, it’s his take on Miami that shines brightest.

A city that’s the modern day American equivalent of the Tower of Babel, the beach town setting is a breeding ground for multilingualism and yet everyone speaks a different language – both linguistically and emotionally. Strongman Beef is an island orbited by Conan and eventually Illi (Ashley Burch) and you feel his pain ripple from the screen, even when he’s not narrating his wandering stream of consciousness in his oh-so-much-more-elegant native tongue.

An emotionally resonant win for faux-cinéma vérité (with a surprise cameo from nerd prince Freddie Wong), The Strongest Man becomes occasionally untacked by amateur bits of visual collage work, the result of a first time DP throwing in the kitchen sink. But while slacking on the strongest cinematography, it excels on the quirky existential mood lighting that Riches is able to produce scene for scene. Don’t be mistaken, the weird, quirky and surrealistic vision quest that is The Strongest Man marks Riches as a talent to look out for down the line, once his technical marksmanship catches up with his creative core.

C+

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