I could not have prepared myself for the twist that comes midway through one of the most bizarrely made films I’ve ever seen at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The movie is called Little Death, and it follows a depressed, middle-aged screenwriter (played by David Schwimmer) living in LA whose midlife/artistic/existential crisis makes for a manic, disjointed experience.

We see that he’s a screenwriter who is grappling with “selling out,” having made his success from a brainless TV sitcom back in the day (the parallel to Schwimmer’s actual life feels pointed). He’s now going through the agony of trying to get his very personal and very non-commercial project made with that earlier work hanging over his head. The stress of countless dead ends and empty promises within a smarmy, soulless industry weighs heavily on his fragile mental state.

We hear his aggravated rants against the entertainment industry, and today’s modern living on the whole, in a series of darkly comical voiceovers (making me think of Tyler Durden’s rants in Fight Club). These delusional voiceovers narrate over wild–and I mean wild–computer-generated AI art, which illustrates his depraved fantasies and declining mental state. We also realize that all of this could be the effects of the medication he’s relying on to battle his depression and live his life.

Without giving anything away, it’s around this point that a mid-movie climax ensues, and we’re suddenly following the late-night journey of two pill-addicted kids played by Dominic Fike (Euphoria) and Talia Rider (Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and this year’s The Sweet East). This whole other storyline takes us on a dangerously crazy nighttime adventure that they try to survive, stemming from the unsuccessful scoring of pills (which made me think of what a very different version of Superbad could have been like).

Related: ‘The Sweet East’: Welcome to the United States of Anarchy

Now, I was highly anticipating watching this film (being a fan of David Schwimmer) and had fairly high hopes for this movie. But I’ll be honest, I was already not loving the first half of the film. And when it took its abrupt turn into an even less interesting, more painful second act, I was quite ready to leave the film behind.

Little Death is the directorial debut of Jack Begert, a music video director who has worked with Kendrick Lamar, Olivia Rodrigo, and James Blake, to name a few. Begert attempts the very ambitious idea of making and connecting two quite different types of stories to try to make something that comes together full circle in a larger way. But it’s an attempt that doesn’t work at a basic enjoyment level.

Now, I will say that Begert’s creative swing is a big one. Experimenting and challenging the form is integral to cinema so that storytelling can evolve (and it’s great that Sundance continues to foster this type of artistry). At the very least, Begert is making a statement about some pretty important topics in today’s culture: depression, addiction, and overly-prescribed medication which are necessary conversations to have.

Little Death was in part produced by Darren Aronofsky, who similarly explored drug addiction with the painfully visceral Requirem for a Dream. But Little Death is a tonal mess and really could have benefited from Aronofsky giving Begert some notes in the editing room. While the film awaits distribution, it would benefit by having some much-needed cuts lest it suffer a quiet death of its own when it releases.

1h 50m. ‘Little Death’ is currently awaiting distribution.