I Agree With You: A Film by Ross Compton on Prime Video

---

I Agree with You: A Funny Fearless look at Love Under Pressure - Review By: Paul Lisnek

***1/2 /4

There is a particular kind of intimacy that only a microbudget film can achieve — it’s the kind that gets made not despite its limitations but because of them. "I Agree With You," is the 76 minute debut film from Chicago-based Fortified Films, and the production team clearly understands how to work with the limitations. A small budget film with a small crew and a cast of two, we get more emotional truth from a single evening in a simple apartment than many multi-million-dollar are able to deliver with a large money budget. It is a small film but it has an enormous beating heart, and it puts a spotlight on writer/cast lead Ross Compton and director Jake VanKersen as artists worth following closely in the coming years.

The premise is simple: Hector and Penny, a thirty-something couple, cancel evening plans with friends to “enjoy” a rare day off together at home. What begins with the comfortable routine moments of domestic life — a shower, breakfast, light chit-chat — gradually morphs into something far more complicated. As the hours pass, the cracks in their seemingly solid relationship emerge but neither partner has the emotional vocabulary to directly address the differences. So they do what many couples do: they deflect, they joke, they sidestep and they go silent. But then they take the creative step to start role-playing in search of an answer. They become their friends (the ones they cancelled on), then they become each other, and ultimately, they become elderly versions of themselves reflecting back on the lives they think they’ve lived. The game consumes them, and somewhere along the way, they finally start telling the truth.

What makes "I Agree With You" work as effectively as it does is the sharp tight writing. Compton, who wrote the screenplay and stars as Hector, demonstrates a playwright's ear for the way real people talk — and candidly, the way they avoid talking. His dialogue moves with the rhythm of an improv-trained performer, which makes sense given his background in improv. The script is funny in the way that a good rom-com is funny: you laugh because you recognize yourself in it, and then you stop laughing also because you recognize yourself in it. The tonal shift from comedy to something more raw and vulnerable is handled quite well by both Compton and his girlfriend/partner Penny (strongly played by Stevie Shale). Ultimately this is a dramedy that meditates on whether love can survive in the face of honesty.

The performances are the film's focus and great achievement. Shale’s Penny and Compton’s Hector have the difficult challenge of playing characters who are constantly pretending to be other people, but still signal to the audience what Penny and Hector are actually feeling underneath their adopted masks. Shale is funny, cutting, and deeply wounded, often simultaneously. She delivers a joke that lands with love but can follow it with a silence that lands like a gut punch. Compton's Hector is the perfect counter balance — warm, deflecting, but quietly desperate. The chemistry from the film’s opening moments between them is not manufactured; it feels lived-in; you believe that these two people have a history, lots of inside jokes, nicknames, and wounds they agree not to discuss. As the role-play intensifies, the emotions rise and both actors rise with them. It is almost always clear when they have shifted personas, but candidly, there are a couple of moments when we are left uncertain as to who we are watching, but they may be part of Compton and VanKersen’s intent. 

Director VanKersen demonstrates a confident hand with limited resources. The story is confined to a single apartment, and the space is used the way a skilled theater director might use a stage: every part of the room becomes a location for another confrontation. For example, the couch is a place for play, the bedroom is where tensions grow or the couple takes a break with sleep and contemplation, and the kitchen seems a safe space. 

This is a movie that can easily translate to the stage of one of Chicago’s many storefront theaters and I hope that happens. There is nothing flashy about the setting, and that is exactly the point. VanKersen trusts the material and clearly his actors, who use the space effectively to be free, uncomfortable, or just take a break. Nothing feels rushed and nothing seems stretched beyond its effect. 

What lingers after the credits roll is the film's central thesis: the games lovers play to avoid having tough conversations are often the very tool that lead us to play them. Hector and Penny's role-play is not escape from their problems; it’s the means to a solution if there is going to be one. The film's title offers irony: they are the safe words, but also the goal of an effective relationship. 

"I Agree With You" is personal and made with a love for the craft of filmmaking. For anyone who has ever been in a relationship where silence speaks more than words, this film will likely register. And for anyone who hasn't — well, watch it anyway. You’ll just enjoy it.