I’ve always found the crypto bro a bit unsettling. The (rare) unaware crypto bro is the worst of the sort: a smugness multiplied by their own depravity of self-knowledge that disgusts in both self-absorption and aesthetic value. The Manifestation, the directorial feature debut from the Dutch-born and US-based Geert Heetebrij, is the first film I’m aware of that has a little bit of fun with the crypto phenomenon. 

Stay-at-home crypto trader Stephen (Jack Kesy) gambles with his and his wife Roni’s (Inbar Lavi) life savings and often ends up on the wrong side of the balance book. Listening to the advice of life coach and all things capitalist guru Michael (Usman Ally), he “manifests” Vronika (Lavi), the younger and red-dyed hair alter-ego version of his wife. And, as the cycles of gambling addictions always go, things don’t turn out so well for Stephen and Roni. (Vronika’s somewhat spooky turn sure doesn’t help.)

Lavi, of Lucifer distinction, is the most recognizable face in the film. The Israeli born actress is certainly one of the picture’s best features and Heetebrij does well to give her a double role. Ally’s small role also impressed me. He embodies the weird capitalist self-help guru so perfectly that I felt like I recognized him. The character is fictional, of course, but he nails the vanity and phony verve of the type of career coach who puts their face on the front cover of a book. Yuck. 

The production is clearly ambitious and effortful even if flawed and limited in scope. In one scene, Roni storms out of the front door to go to her sister’s house during a marital fight that arises from Stephen’s new trading “tool”; as she exits the front door, centered by Tyler Grimm’s camera, a US flag rides the wind and rouses up in the background. The fleeting, perhaps even accidental, moment adds just enough Americana to connect Stephen’s trading practice with the myths of the American dream. Moments like this come from a place of sincere artistry. Most of the film takes place in the shallow interiors of Stephen and Roni’s home and sometimes feels claustrophobic —usually with purpose. Occasionally, the abundance of close-ups comes across as excessive; other times, it pays off quite well, including in a few of the film’s major twists. 

Heetebrij’s debut is listed in most places as horror or horror-thriller, but I’d also venture to say it’s a comedy– at least, to those who find the crypto-bro intolerable. Stephen garbs himself in Airpods, fantasizes in a tempered wife-guy manner, has four widescreen TV monitors mounted to the wall in his home office, and manifests financial success in a manner reminiscent of the post post-modern astrology girlies. I mean, that’s all kind of funny, right? 

Heetebrij and his collaborators play it straight, and that at least leaves open the possibility of a self-reflective interpretation. By this, I mean that however one thinks about this particular flavor of the late-stage digital capitalist man going into The Manifestation will dramatically shape their evaluation of the material as horror and/or comedy. The flippant scripture references add a sense of grandiosity to the drama that further adds to the insular cultish tendencies of the cryptocurrency community, while also stopping just short of full-throated satire. As for myself, a person basically incapable of taking real-life versions of Stephen seriously, I can’t take the fictional one all that seriously either. And that also makes The Manifestation worth watching. 

The Manifestation
2024
dir. Geert Heetebrij
85 min.

Available digitally and on demand Tuesday, 3/19

Joshua Polanski is a freelance film and culture writer who writes regularly for the Boston Hassl and has contributed to the Bay Area Reporter, In Review Online, and Off Screen amongst other places. His interests include the technical elements of filmmaking & exhibition, slow & digital cinemas, cinematic sexuality, as well as Eastern and Northern European, East Asian, & Middle Eastern film.