Here’s a few key details about this week’s recommendation.

Director: Hailey Gates
Writer: Hailey Gates
Cast: Alia Shawkat, Zahra Alzubaidi, Callum Turner
Synopsis: An aspiring actress works on a U.S. military base that simulates an Iraqi war zone.
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Resources: IMDb, Where to stream

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An aspiring actress works on a U.S. military base that simulates an Iraqi war zone.

→ Anti-war satire. Veiled in an absurd, romantic comedy narrative.

→ Quirky, unexpected romance. This is one of the least conventional on-screen romances your author has seen in a while, and the characters were interesting enough to overcome a slightly rushed setup. Worthy of note: the director clearly had fun imagining kinks resulting from wartime deployment.

→ Alia Shawkat. She’s so often playing in an ensemble (most known for her role in Arrested Development), other than her leading turn in Search Party. It’s nice to see her own a marvelously written leading role again.

→ Private iPod. My favorite gag of the entire film. So much so that I’m mentioning it here with no context, only to remind myself of how very much I loved this gag. This line has no utility for any readers who haven’t already watched the film, but it’s already been written, and I’ve had the backspace key on my laptop permanently removed.

Hailey Gates’ Atropia is a wartime satire dressed up as a surrealist romantic comedy. It’s because of this clever structure that the film manages to avoid the narrative pitfalls or patronizing lectures that so many wartime satires tend to devolve into, and perhaps part of the reason it was recognized as the Grand Jury Prize Winner for the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance in 2025.

The film is focused on genuinely fascinating subject matter, and Alia Shawkat is the perfect steward for this toothy exploration of simulated military towns, often used to prepare U.S. soldiers for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. Her instincts to find comedy in little notes and brief-but-potent glances meaningfully elevate the film’s sense of humor.

What’s ultimately novel about the film, though, is the playfulness with which Hailey Gates tackles serious political territory. Whether it’s a lighthearted cameo, a malfunctioning goat bomb, or an unexpected, Port-A-Potty-induced sexual response, Atropia succeeds because it knows better than to lecture its audience. Instead, Gates accentuates the absurdity of such a military practice, and lets the audience make up their own minds about just about everything else.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”

EDGE CASE.

Open wide.

I’ll do the talking, because, well, that’s always the case in my line of work. Hard to talk with a bunch of metal picks and tubes and mirrors holding your mouth open.

Studies show dentists die by suicide at a rate twice that of the general population. Male dentists are more susceptible than females, and somewhere around 60% of us who do the deed end up using a firearm. Female dentists are split between firearms (30%) and hanging (30%). 

Creativity is dead. Or is it? The rest of the deceased-by-choice dentists are edge cases. I suppose I’m destined to be an edge case, because I don’t have the hardened enamel to pull the trigger or kick a chair out from beneath me and hang there. But I’m not sure I can do this shit for the rest of my life.

I opened up my practice in 1993. Maybe ten or eleven years in, I saw a woman about half the age of most of my dental equipment, which I’d refused to upgrade from the previous owner. No need to get rid of the old tools if they still work just fine. The same pale pink paint the previous owner’s wife picked out when he built the place is still here, crumbling off the drywall. People joke that the office looks about the same as when they used to come in as kids. They’re correct. But they’re still coming in, so I must be doing something right.

The woman I saw had bunched up, auburn hair like a chewed-up stick of Big Red gum. She always wore a tight maroon blouse and light-colored jeans with a tear in the left knee. She kept her teeth well. Only issue was with one tooth. Her left incisor (2-2). The damned thing didn’t want to sit straight. Crooked like the yield sign I drive by every morning, the one the drunk driver mowed over and the county never replanted in the dirt.

I sat her down for her first visit and asked her if she’d ever wanted a retainer. She said she’d had one before but she didn’t like to wear it. Besides, she said, the tooth was only a little out of line and she sort of grew to like it.

Why?

She was damn near perfect except for 2-2. Why wouldn’t a woman like her just want to fix the damned thing? She’d made up her mind though, and the funny thing is I sort of grew to like the misfit tooth too. Whenever she’d smile, I’d see the tooth trying to make a jump for it and chuckle to myself. It was endearing once you got used to it. Big Red’s calling card.

She came in every 6 months, on the dot. She booked the very first appointment each day, the one just before the sun peered through the front window.

One morning, maybe the third or fourth time I’d seen her, she comes in and tells me that the tooth — the crooked stop sign — was throbbing. Said the pain was agonizing.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “How painful is it on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst?”

“Fucking 10!” she grabs both my hands. “It really, really hurts. Help me, Doc. Please help me.”

So, I tell her to grab a seat in the chair. I kick the recliner pedal and lean her all the way back. That’s when I notice her smiling. Ear to ear like a kid getting a free toothbrush at the end of their appointment. Didn’t look like she was in too much pain right then.

“Miss?” I said. “You okay?”

“I’m just glad to be getting to the bottom of this,” her shoulders roll down and she closes her eyes. “Go ahead, Doc!”

She opens up and I yank on the overhead light until the inside of her mouth is aglow like the cheap aquarium in the waiting room. I pull her cheeks open with my mirror and probe around. 

Now, you should know something about dentists. We always know a faker when we see one, and I remember thinking Big Red was faking it right around this moment. She says she’s in unimaginable, intolerable pain, but really she looks like she’s a couple of cucumber slices away from a spa day.

So I test the theory. I poke and scale and spray water and air and just about do everything to 2-2 and I start to get frustrated because she’s barely responding. Like the whole thing was some kind of weird joke. I get so consumed by the thing that I can’t stop. The whole time her eyes are closed and I’m just poking at the tooth until finally, I draw blood from the gums.

All of the sudden, Big Red lets out a big fat moan and groan and, I shit you not, she cums all over the dental chair. The whole thing is so wet for a second I thought it’d short the power supply if there was an outlet nearby. She puts her hands on my wrists. She gently pushes on them and my mirror and scaler slide out of her mouth. 

“See you in six months?” she says. 

I’m in shock and my mouth is hanging wide open like I’m about to get a cleaning and I don’t say a single word back to her. Big Red gets up and struts her and that crooked tooth to the front desk and makes an appointment for six months out.

I never told my wife. She wouldn’t have gotten jealous or angry or anything but for some reason I just couldn’t do it.

Get this. Four or five months later, I walk into the office and my receptionist, Reid — she says our schedule is completely full. It was the first time since I’d opened the place that I was booking nearly four months out.

“You're kidding, right?” I said.

“Nope,” Reid replied. “All new patients, pretty much. Not sure where they came from.”

“All…new?” I asked. “Make sure we prioritize older patients who’ve been with us for a while, at least.”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” Reid said. “I’ve got everyone in the books for their bi-annuals. Big Red is already in for next month.”

That’s when I realized. Big Red. Big Fucking Red. She must have friends that…like dental work as much as she does. Didn’t take a dental detective to figure out where the uptick came from.

I know what you’re thinking. Did you tell your wife, Doc? Look, if I told my wife, she'd obviously think it was weird. Why would I agree to see Big Red again? And worse, why would I take on so many clients with such a predisposition for dentistry? Besides, this wasn’t a romantic thing. Her friends weren’t all women, anyways. It was just nice to feel appreciated. All I’m saying is my wife and I’d been happily married for thirty years by then, and I can’t remember a time she wetted my dental chair.

Also, we needed the business. And if I’m being honest, treating patients to climax was, well, more interesting than the alternative. I hadn’t studied for it, but I seemed to know what I was doing. I never touched anything but their mouths, just the same way I was taught in dentistry school. Just scaling and brushing and cleaning. Nothing weird. The normal stuff. 

Other patients were gracious enough with their thank you cards around the holidays and recurring business was gratitude enough for me, most of the time. But there’s nothing quite like the appreciation you feel when someone literally cums over your work. 

So, I decided to keep it to myself and so began the never-ending parade of odontophiliacs through my office.

Big Red always kept it simple. Just a cleaning and every once in a while, some make-pretend tooth ache she needed taken care of.

Others had other less typical preferences and I tried my best to oblige. There was one man who looked like a strangled-empty tube of toothpaste who came in every few months. He wore a tie-dye shirt, usually, and was partial to the fluoride tray. He’d have me load it up with chocolate-flavored fluoride and stick it in his mouth, same way I’d do for the real procedure. Then, he’d ask me to tell him about all his cavities and how he needs to floss and take better care of his teeth otherwise his parents would be disappointed in him. Usually about the time I’d get to the part about his parents, he’d cum so hard the chair would nearly shake off its base.

There was another older woman who asked me to shove a Water Pik up her ass, but this was a bridge to far. It wasn’t sanitary or safe, either. I offered her Mr. Suction instead (this is what we called the saliva ejector for kids [that bendy straw thing we always leave in your mouth when we’re cleaning]). She seemed uncertain, but upon seeing the device had a hard time saying no.

I didn’t get much out of any of it. Not in terms of arousal, anyways. But the more they came in, the more I realized these people had nowhere else to go. Who were they hurting if they got a little extra satisfaction out of good dental hygiene? Who was I to turn them away? Was it so wrong to give these people a place to do their thing?

Business was better than ever and a few years went by just like this. So, yeah, I guess the data shows that dentists are more likely to commit suicide. I submit that there’s no better antidote than feeling wanted. And boy, did I feel wanted.

Knock, knock, knock.

Nobody ever knocks. on the front door. It’s a fucking dental office. Open the door. Walk in.

“It’s open,” Reid yelled. “Come on in!”

I eavesdropped from around the corner.

“Is Dr. Julian here today?” a gruff voice asked. “We’ve got a few questions for him.”

I ran to my office in the back and pretended to organize some papers until the two men in black suits and trench coats appeared around the corner.

“Here come the Men in Black!” I sang.

Why the fuck did I—

“Sorry,” I course corrected. “Not sure why I did that. What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Julian,” the man on the right addressed me. “We’re with a special task force in the FBI. Have you seen this woman?”

I knew who he was talking about right away, and he held up an enlarged picture of Big Red getting out of a black car.

“Hmmm,” I pretended. “I’m not sure. I only see patients once every six months and we’re booked far out these days. What’s her name?”

“Well, doctor,” the man on the left said. “She goes by a few different names. Hard to keep up. We didn’t see any of her usual names in your appointment logs, but we’re just doing our diligence.”

“What’d she do?” I asked. “Something bad?”

“We can’t share much,” the man on the left replied. “But we can tell you this. This woman is extremely dangerous. If you do see her, do not treat her under any circumstances. Understood?”

“Call us if she ever turns up,” the man on the right handed me a card. “Got it?”

The men in black left and I shrunk back into my office chair. I spent a few minutes imagining what Big Red could have possibly done that warranted FBI involvement. I didn’t have to wonder for long, though, because Big Red’s appointment was right around the corner. 

I thought about calling them back, but Big Red had brought all this business in. Before she’d turned up, the practice was barely keeping afloat. If she and all her friends stopped turning up, I’m not sure we could even stay open. Better to be honest and ask her directly. I owed her this courtesy, at the very least.

Big Red showed up to her cleaning like everything was normal, but I was a terrible liar. Always had been.

“Something wrong, Doc?” she grinned until I could see that beautiful tooth, number 2-2. “You don’t look so good.”

“Oh it’s nothing,” I assured her. “Just a lot going on around here these days.”

Big Red stared blankly for ten clock ticks and I froze in front of her.

“Okay then,” her face twisted back into that familiar smile. “Shall we get started?”

I sat her in the chair and kicked the recliner pedal. My hands were red and sweating through my gloves, so much I could barely hold onto my mirror and scaler.

Big Red opened her mouth and I went to work cleaning her, tooth by tooth, as always. But she barely responded. It wasn’t doing anything for her. She was completely absent. Like I was just like any other dentist to her that day.

“Everything okay with you?” I asked.

“Mmhmm,” she gestured towards the mirror halfway down her throat. I pulled them out and laughed. “I’m okay. Let’s just get on with it.”

Deep breath.

I kept at it. Swept through the top teeth: 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

“Doc,” she spit and rinsed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot!” I tried to sound calm.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about me?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I played dumb.

“I think you know what I mean,” she answered. “Even those agents that came by. Why wouldn’t you tell them?”

“How’d you—” I interrupted myself. “— I just thought you deserved a place to feel safe. To be yourself.”

She smiled a real smile and gave me one last look at 2-2 before it happened. 

“Okay, Doc,” she said. “I’m ready for you.”

I turned to grab my scaler and swiveled back around and there she fucking was. Big Red. 

She looked right at the metal hook with an intensity you wouldn’t believe. Before I even started cleaning her teeth, she clenched her jaw tightly and her hands white-knuckling the arm rests until she nearly tore through the gray leather. She erupted and convulsed and for a moment I wasn’t sure if she was in pleasure or pain until she let out a devilish grin in my direction.

Then came the crunching and clicking and rearranging. Big Red’s legs were forced wide open and the screams of a thousand dentists escaped from between her thighs. Ten or twelve or more thin, wretched arms, veins twisting all over, reached out from inside her. 

No guns. No hanging. The edge cases, I thought.

With a slow curl of their fingers, they invited me inside. I’m not sure I had a choice. And believe me, I thought for a moment about running. But the truth is, being on the inside of Big Red was a whole lot more interesting than being a fucking dentist. 

And so I walked right in. The walls were dripping with a thick, cloudy fluid and they pulsed inwards and outwards with Big Red’s breath. I walked and walked until I arrived at the other side, which looked just like my office.

I stepped out and saw my old dentistry gadgets and nitrite gloves. They no longer looked like tools to me. They were toys. I was quickly overwhelmed with sensation and my fingers curled and every hair on the back of my neck wanted out. I imagined the possibilities and practically burst right then and there thinking about it all. But I was insatiable. I wanted more.

I turned around and saw Big Red. She walked away without a word. I followed her, knowing she’d lead me right to the next edge case’s dental practice.