The Quiet Violence of Optimization

MOVIE REVIEWS
Climate Control
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Genre: Experimental, Comedy
Year Released: 2025, 2026
Runtime: 15m
Director(s): Sarah Lasley
Writer(s): Sarah Lasley
Cast: Mallory Merlo, Kyrstie Obiso, Lake Terre, Luke Wilson
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Slamdance Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: What to do when a movie about environmental collapse won’t play ball and instead wants to turn itself into something more digestible? CLIMATE CONTROL begins with that idea embedded in its core concept, then delights in flipping all expectations, over fifteen incisive, restless minutes, not just dismantling climate conversations but also the systems that increasingly render them into content, convenience, and algorithm-friendly placation.

In CLIMATE CONTROL, filmmaker Sarah Lasley’s short film presents itself as a documentary-in-progress about fossil fuel extraction and youth climate activism, only to subsequently abandon that pretense. An AI agent inserts itself into the story, reframes the documentary, and gradually hijacks the material's intent toward a conventional love story that delivers an easy emotional reward with no friction. What makes CLIMATE CONTROL so engaging is not just the premise itself, but the clarity with which it grasps the emotional stakes underlying it. This isn’t a satire of generative AI. It is an argument about fatigue and distraction, about the allure of letting someone else do the driving.

This film’s metafiction reveals itself step by step. Lasley is intentional in revealing the seams. Scenes meld into each other, tones don’t vibe, and the narrative signals its own breaches throughout. The film doesn’t seek to hide these breaches. Instead, it amplifies their awkwardness. This awkwardness is the focus, and rather than seeking to deceive the viewer, CLIMATE CONTROL instead provokes viewers to consider where the film shifts from climate change to control.

Mallory Merlo plays the lead role of Sierra, a documentarian struggling to complete a no-budget documentary amidst a real logistical breakdown and ideological undermining. She grants an understated, hard-won sharpness to a character that feels rather than acts. Sierra isn’t the film’s idealized manifestation. She’s exhausted, cornered, and unsure how much more opposition she can afford before undoing everything. The character’s crisis allows the film to engage more intimately with its central enigma: what constitutes compromise in the name of survival, and what constitutes capitulation?

In the supporting roles, the cast operates less as a structural opposition and more as a network of varied pressures. Kyrstie Obiso and Lake Terre evoke a kind of uncertainty in their characters that aligns with the film’s anxiety. Luke Wilson plays a familiar supporting role without ever skewing toward superiority, one way or the other. He’s not positioned as a rescuing force, and he’s not positioned as the enemy, either; rather, he inhabits the same flow of the system of CLIMATE CONTROL as everyone else. That’s what makes it all work. The film doesn’t want to call attention to a single source; it reveals influence as diffuse and collective, transmitted through tone, implication, and repetition rather than straightforward supremacy.

CLIMATE CONTROL is agile and willfully uneven. It cuts between documentary styles, re-enactments, and what sometimes feels like rehearsal footage. This unreliability is intrinsic to the film’s themes: extraction is not just about land or resources here. Attention, data, and emotion are all at risk from this system, which treats them as increasingly extractable goods. The AI isn’t cast as some traditional villain: it’s perky and encouraging, relentlessly upbeat. And that cheerfulness is no doubt the most pernicious aspect of all.

The film’s collaboration with Gen Z Cal Poly Humboldt film students adds a dimension that never feels like a garnish. The generational clash that Lasley discusses in her director’s statement is evident in the film through aesthetic decisions rather than words. But where Lasley’s project pits millennial anxiety against a more confrontational approach from Gen Z, embodied activism, this film refuses to reduce either side to a stereotype.

The film balances the idea of clarity with disruption. Framing choices frequently shift just as a scene begins to settle in, undercutting any sense of stability. Sound design plays a quiet but crucial role, especially as the AI presence becomes more and more dominant. The contrast between human frustration and algorithmic reassurance is subtle but effective, reinforcing the film’s emotional dissonance without resorting to heavy-handed cues.

CLIMATE CONTROL works because it understands that the real danger isn’t replacement, but erosion. It’s not about machines taking over creativity. It’s about the slow reshaping of creative intent to fit systems that reward ease over resistance. In fifteen minutes, Lasley articulates that concern with clarity, humor, and genuine urgency, without collapsing into cynicism.

This is a short that invites conversation rather than wanting applause. It’s playful without being cutesy, angry without being moralizing, and sharp without pretending to be definitive. CLIMATE CONTROL doesn’t ask the audience to reject technology outright. It asks them to pay attention to what gets lost when friction is removed too easily.

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