No one can tolerate Allison’s (Aubrey Plaza) on-set behavior, so the actress sets her sights on another form of torture: directing. Creative juices all but parched, Allison opts to spend a little emotional tuneup time at a woodsy bed and breakfast owned and operated by an unhappily married couple: musician Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and pregnant wife Blair (Sarah Gadon). In the time it takes to carry her bags to the house, Allison’s host has already hit on his paying customer. After dinner, and with the lugubriously lubricating aid of a bottle of wine, Allison watches as the couple act out their rage in a manner that makes Albee’s George and Martha look like Blondie and Dagwood. So far, nothing we’ve seen rings even remotely true, starting with the premise. A retreat epitomizes alone time, not a place one goes when in need of a bout of relationship counseling with the hired help. This all changes when, halfway through the film, roles reverse and we leave our one-act play for a film-within-a-film about the making of the one-act play. At one point, Allison is described as “hard to read,” an insight that applies to the actress as well. Plaza has built a career leaving audiences trying to outguess her every move. If you’re a Plaza-watcher waiting for her ship to come in, the Queen Mary just docked. She’s never been better. Too bad the performance is housed in a technical exercise gone awry. Directed by Lawrence Michael Levine. (2020) — Scott Marks