Written and directed by Nadia Conners, The Uninvited (2024) is an aching, existential ode to aging and ambitions, set in our golden age of utter hopelessness. It conveys that nagging feeling that no matter how hard you scream for things to get better, whether for yourself or the world, they might never be enough. However, it conveys that feeling through the trivial affairs of its privileged L.A. people, who work only in the hours they get paid. It presents this saddening transactionality of present relationships that you often cannot argue against since nearly everyone has been worried about an impending cataclysmic shift in the world. How will you survive through it if you don’t get paid?

‘The Uninvited’ conveys this dread through the conversations of its mainly 40-something characters, who led superfluous lives, whether by choice or for the lack of it. The film is jam-packed with insights into...