Inspired by writer/director/star James Morosini’s true life experience, I Love My Dad follows Chuck (Patton Oswalt), an estranged father who desperately wants to reconnect with his depressive son, Franklin (Morosini). Blocked on social media and concerned for his son’s life, Chuck impersonates a waitress (Claudia Sulewski) online and starts checking in with Franklin. But things begin to spiral when Franklin falls for this imaginary girl and wants nothing more than to meet her in-person, as Chuck inadvertently ‘catfished’ his own son.

The winner of SXSW 2022’s Grand Jury Award in the Narrative Feature Competition and boasting a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I Love My Dad showcases “terrific performances” (Austin Chronicle) as “[Morosini] takes an embarrassing thing that happened to him and turns it into a squirm-inducing (albeit surprisingly accepting) father-son comedy” (Variety) that “has moments that are downright hysterical, while others [are] cringe-worthy and disturbing in the best of ways. It is both funny and tenderhearted, and [there is no] film quite like it” (Awards Daily). Critic Andrea Thompson concludes: “That [Morosini] pulls this off so successfully is doubtless an indicator of a filmmaker at the cusp of a long career” (A Reel of One’s Own).