People with an addiction feel wrong when they don’t feel right. Gradually, they feel very wrong and must feel right; this moment happens at the end; either they strive for recovery or never return. 

 

What is captivating (and uncomfortable) about $Positions, the debut from writer/director Brandon Daley, is its portrayal of the veracity of addiction. This film is about a young Midwest 20-something, Mike (Michael Kunicki), whose crypto addiction is ambitious, sad, and exhausting. When he gets a hit, he briefly steps into a world where everything is right before it inevitably slams shut. 

 

Mike works a minimum-wage factory job, but he has crypto-rich ambitions. Mike’s investment pays off early; his crypto worth hits $35 thousand. This amount being the highest he’s ever seen in real life, Mike confidently quits his job, asks his girlfriend for an open relationship, invites his cousin, a recovering addict, for a night on the town, and suggests his alcoholic father trade up for Mike’s newly acquired weed gummies. 

 

True responsibilities are not interesting to Mike. Most of the film is devoted to Mike jumping from one wacky scenario to another. Daley uses his camera to shoot tight close-ups, allowing us to dive into Mike’s subjective state before objectivity brings Mike to reality. Mike makes more investments, watching his crypto stock rise and fall and rise again to heights he could never dream of, then fall again. 

 

His girlfriend Charlene (Kaylyn Carter) is supportive and embodies the hopeful girlfriend we’ve all met a hundred times before. She believes in Mike, even though she shouldn’t. I wish she had more to do than be a prop for Mike to chase after later; after Mike requests an open relationship, Charlene is briefly hesitant before fully committing to the concept. Mike punishes himself for taking her for granted, seeing her draped around the arms of another man. A warped reality is a byproduct of the addiction high, and riches and wealth are all relative.

 

Trevor Dawkins plays Travis, the enthusiastic recovering cousin. He has recently found Jesus and sobriety, although not from weed and alcohol. Travis manifests the uglier side of addiction, to say the more tangible, violent consequences of relapse. Dawkins is a good actor and does well despite Travis being a plot turnkey for Mike. After Mike’s dad overdoses on the weed gummies, Mike sells the house, ostensibly to pay hospital bills. Travis takes Mike and his brother Vinny into his home and mediates a meeting between Mike and Travis’ former dealer.

 

For viewers who get overstimulated easily, there are a handful of scenes where the sound mixes of compounding and competing dialogue, music, and foley audio may be extremely hard to sit through. No doubt, this choice was by design. Daley’s debut strikes hard on themes of greed, addiction, and anxiety. To call this film a straight comedy would be disingenuous.

 

There are beats where humor is supposed to land, and we are expected to experience levity, but I could not crack a smile. The performances are good, with special acclaim for Kunicki. He plays Mike as a collapsing ruin with stout earnestness, making me want to embrace and comfort him in one scene and knock his lights out in another. He represents his generation, transfixed on his phone, ever checking his crypto app. The fluctuating curve of his crypto worth rising and falling is a motif of his life.

 

Sure, $POSITIONS is a low-budget film, but it does not require a flashy set and big budget (crypto or otherwise) to cause nausea and unease. This film is a study on anxiety and addiction, and there was nothing low budget with how I was moved by the end. I am grateful that Daley could make his film; he is onto something. I did not walk away from this film so much as it kicked me out.