“How badass is this shit, bro!” — USC Film School Student.

That’s basically Perfect in a nutshell.

The movie seems to fashion itself as sharing a lineage with the likes of Alex Garland, Gaspar Noé, and Terence Malick. But this isn’t a case of channeling their style without the substance; even its style lacks substance.

Flying Lotus’ score is aces…on its own. But as used in the film, it barely makes an impression. And since that’s how I evaluate music in movies, it’s not amongst my favorites of 2019.

One part of the score not obscured by the tepid execution around it: the music video about midway through. The entirety of Perfect feels reverse-engineered to flesh out this sequence’s evocatively-abstract elements into a larger narrative.

But, you know, as they say, sometimes: less is more.