Hippo (film)

Did You Know?

• UTA acquired the sales rights to the film on July 24, 2023.
• The film premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 26, 2023.
• It received a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 8, 2024.

Reception

Christian Zilko of IndieWire gave the film a B+ score and designated it a Critic's Pick, describing it as possibly the darkest comedy of 2024 while also contending for the year's funniest film. Zilko noted that the film blends Middle American weirdness with sexual excess, evoking a version of Napoleon Dynamite directed by Peter Greenaway, and praised its dry humor and precise construction. Sydney Ghan of MovieWeb called Hippo an avant-garde sex comedy that pushes the quirks of Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch to their extremes, acknowledging that the film explores taboo subjects like incest and creates discomfort while offering riotous laughter through absurd characters.

Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com wrote that the film shows immense promise and an addictive sense of bizarre character building and atmosphere, but criticized it for failing to make an emotional impact or inspire deep care for the characters Hippo and Buttercup. Natalia Winkelman of The New York Times described the film as a dark, muted comedy with a few rowdy set pieces, noting that while actress Roberts delivers some funny lines, the movie often feels like a hollow exercise in mannered filmmaking with flimsy character quirks.

Wendy Ide of Screen Daily compared the film to Dogtooth in its self-contained perversion of reality but found that Hippo lacks that film's twisted internal logic, instead focusing on delusional characters in a way that veers toward freak-show territory and offers little satisfying storytelling.