and her body was never found
And Her Body Was Never Found (2026)
Directed by Polaris Banks
Polaris Banks’ debut feature film, And Her Body Was Never Found, stars both the filmmaker and his wife, Mor Cohen. It’s a film that can best/most pithily be encapsulated as The Loneliest Planet for yappers, as it features the couple on an extensive hiking trip, right as their relationship reaches a critical tipping point. Unlike Julia Loktev’s film, pronounced silences are missing here, instead occupied by constant bickering between Banks and Cohen. Their tête-à-tête alternates from the admittedly thoughtful to cringe, depending on your exposure to internet psychobabble speak. Given its relatively limited runtime at 76-minutes, Banks divides the narrative into a triptych of sorts, relying on alternating visual forms to communicate his attempt at a meta narrative. I hesitate to call the film meta, in part because Banks and Cohen (co-writers on the project) clearly intend on this “is it real or is it not” quality as being part of the all-CAPs, in bold, 72-font text of the film. I’m not convinced that this quality, particularly exploited in its middle act, really ever amounts to anything substantive.
A key part of the issue is Banks as a performer. This sort of two-hander requires a lot of heavy lifting from its actors. Whether it’s in tone or tenor, Banks often registers as a John Mulaney-type, but without the coke habit - a not-entirely complimentary quality for an actor. However, Cohen is a notable discovery, reminiscent of Adria Arjona in Richard Linklater’s Hitman, of all things. In part, there’s a vulnerability to her performance, along with a kind of scathing self-awareness that really punctuates the film. If Banks’ performance often feels off the rails and not quite calibrated, it’s Cohen who steadily glides the film back into place. With that, Banks’ understanding of Cohen as a performer, with his use of close-ups in particular, suggests that he knows the brunt of the picture is on her shoulders. He compliments her qualities through the filmmaking the best way he can, and the visual language is actually quite sophisticated, particularly in the absurd one-shot Twitch sequence that catapults the film into another strata before plummeting back to Earth with an unfortunate epilogue that does no one any favors. While at times feeling like a first-draft of a feature, there are notable qualities in Cohen’s performance and Banks’ visual form that are commendable highlights. They’re two artists that I’d be eager to see more from, though it may be one of those situations where one remains in front of the camera, and the other behind it.
And Her Body Was Never Found premieres at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival. For ticketing information, click here.