If a hot stranger attempts to befriend you online, it may not be an Eastern European bot or a financial scammer. It might be your confused, desperate, in-over-his-head father seeking a connection. Such is the takeaway from the trailer for I Love My Dad, the new Magnolia Pictures film from director and writer James Morosini, starring Morosini as Franklin, the catfished offspring, and Patton Oswalt as Chuck, the catfishing patriarch. The uncomfortable comedy, which snagged both the Grand Jury Award and Audience Award for Narrative Features at SXSW, tells the story of Morosini’s apparently true-life experience of falling in love with his father’s fabricated online persona, after his dad — realizing he has been blocked from viewing his son’s social-media profiles — creates a fake profile using pictures of a young waitress to keep tabs on him. It’s a classic rom-com setup, almost like When Harry Met Sally…, if When Harry Met Sally… was about borderline incest and directed by Max and Nev from MTV’s Catfish.
Helping round out the cast of the film are Rachel Dratch, Ricky Velez, and Lil Rel Howery, who at one point in the trailer screams at Chuck, “Internet kiss your son!†The movie comes out August 5 in theaters and August 12 on demand. In the meantime, call your parents if you can. You have no idea what lengths they’ll go to if they feel neglected.