In Sender, writer-director Russell Goldman’s high-anxiety debut, the filmmaker expands on his 2022 short Return to Sender, in which Allison Tolman starred as a woman who receives packages she didn’t order. That may not sound like a premise that would result in a paranoid, darkly comedic thriller, much less a feature. But in extending his story from 18 minutes to just over 90, Goldman follows a maddening scenario involving an online retailer called Smirk, a fictionalized Amazon counterpart. More significantly, he captures the frenzied mindset of his protagonist, who grapples with staying sober and several other major life changes—all compounded by a layer of justifiable paranoia brought on by the endless packages. Goldman’s tweaky style and elusive scripting create a peculiar, out-of-whack presentation that destabilizes the viewer, firmly placing us in his main character’s perspective. However, by the end, the journey through this cine-manic headspace doesn’t add up to much, and the potential character study at the center feels somewhat lost in the mechanics of the conspiracy. 

Britt Lower (AppleTV’s Severance) stars as Julia, who has just lost her job and moved into a rental home to get her life on track. She is backed financially by her overbearing sister Tatiana (Anna Baryshnikov), who occasionally comes nosing around to verify that Julia doesn’t backslide. And she doesn’t. Julia attends regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where she meets the steely Whitney (Rhea Seehorn), who isn’t interested in being her sponsor. But at home, Julia receives a Smirk package with her brand of lipstick. The problem? She didn’t order it. She calls customer service, and the representative doesn’t help much before telling her, “Be sure to stay alert and aware.” Wait, what? Sender is loaded with nagging, unplaceable details like this. They’re often amusing, intriguing, and exasperating in the same moment. But these pieces don’t complete a whole picture, at least not a narratively satisfying one. 

The Smirk packages, delivered by the outwardly helpful, nice-guy driver Charlie (David Dastmalchian), contain a random assortment of objects, from drum kits to protein powder. The squirrelly Julia, already coming apart at the seams from her recent drama, doesn’t know what to make of it. She’s convinced there’s some plot against her, perhaps by someone at Smirk. To what end, she doesn’t know. But Goldman gives us a glimpse of the long-term consequences of her ordeal in the prologue, which features Jamie Lee Curtis (also a producer) as Lisa, a woman in circumstances similar to Julia’s. Lisa’s response to receiving a box of soil with a broken shin pad (with “Can’t Can’t Can” scrawled on it) entails an attempt to suffocate herself with the bubble wrap, only to do far worse with a sharp edge of the shin pad. To show Lisa’s fate, Goldman’s imagery becomes twisted and surreal but also cryptic. 

Sender’s disorienting mood is matched by a skewed formal presentation. Cinematographer Gemma Doll-Grossman’s wide-angle lenses and arch angles might feel at home in a Ken Russell or Terry Gilliam feature such as The Devils (1971) or 12 Monkeys (1996). Julia’s half-remembered drinking binges, accented by blurry close-ups, suggest she may have slept with any number of coworkers. She can’t remember, and it embarrasses her. Her rental is dressed in simple if shabby décor, which gives way to Julia’s erratic collage-like overhaul. Melisa Myers’ stuffed production design makes the most of heightened colors and banal, cluttered rooms that lend a normality to the bizarre, ever more disturbing predicament. Nathan Ruyle’s erratic music delivers what must be described as a soundscape rather than a traditional score, with collusive sound effects and tones driving our certainty that Julia is onto something. Along with Marco Rosas’ discordant editing, Goldman’s technical approach effectively reflects Julia’s fragmented, sleep-deprived mind. But his work as a writer hasn’t done enough to justify this level of technique. 

After Julia makes a revelatory discovery that small cameras have been embedded in the products from those mysterious packages, the eventual explanation about what has been happening and why strains logic and underwhelms. It also raises even more unanswered questions. Although well-made and acted—Lower and Seehorn should be on track to movie stardom—Goldman’s script could have used another draft to better work through what unfolds. Sender doesn’t give us enough of its characters’ inner lives beyond the situation at hand, so Julia, Charlie, Tatiana, and Whitney feel like devices in a scenario rather than well-drawn human beings. Even so, Goldman fills his film with deeply broken people who try to gain control of their lives by controlling others, exposing and preying on their weaknesses. Despite the material’s potential resonance, Goldman’s style is overpowering. Still, his kernel of an idea and the way he explores it demonstrate his clear skill, and for much of Sender, its sheer oddball energy earns admiration.