The Second Act (2024) review

David (Louis Garrel), on a walk with his friend Willy (Raphaël Quenard) to meet up with his girlfriend Florence (Léa Seydoux) and her father Guillaume (Vincent Lindon) at a restaurant (named The Second Act), tries convincing Willy to date her instead - meanwhile, the performers keep breaking character to bicker with one another.  Almost all of Dupieux's shortish features have an absurd premise that he's able to play around with, but here the "joke" is that it's actually a movie written and directed by Artificial Intelligence which explains its intentional lousiness ... except those extremely long tracking shots drain the life out of it, and the few chuckles that are in there (mainly at the expense of a waiter with severe anxiety) aren't nearly enough to compensate.  Some viewers seem to be rattled by Willy saying he wouldn't want to be romantically involved with a trans-woman ... only for it to be revealed later on that he's in a committed relationship with Guillaume.  In the business, I believe that's called a rug pull.  Yoink!