Alex Karpovsky wrote and directed Red Flag and is best known for being one of the few male stars in Girls. Red Flag is about an indie documentary filmmaker at the beginning of his film tour and at the end of a long-term romantic relationship. He is a hot mess and foolishly tries to make the tour more emotionally and psychologically transformative than it is. Red Flag is like watching a train wreck. Red Flag is captivating and awful in its predictability if you can peg the personality types of the four characters, especially his friend Henry, whom Alex is not close to, but because Henry is available and enthusiastic to all experiences is his foil and Alex hubristically tries to imitate.
If you’re not into the mumble core genre, skip Red Flag, but if you are, you may enjoy Red Flag. Red Flag is about that time in life when you are much too advanced in age and your career to have the allowances and excuses that a kid can claim, but way too immature in relationships and finances and not established in your career to deserve the title of an adult. Red Flag is definitely not a must see, but if you’re into that East Coast, every white man independent film blues, especially if you cover your individual anxieties with philosophical BS, I would give it a shot. Red Flag is just realistic enough to be authentically awkward, but just unrealistic enough for me not to trigger flashbacks. Even on my worse day, I’m wiser so I enjoyed it, but I can see it hitting close to home for some people so consider yourself warned.