In the unlikely event that you've ever been truly curious as to how much M.F.A.-style toxic masculinity can be packed into one motion picture, you ought to check out The Vanishing of Sidney Hall.

The most passable lens through which to watch writer-director Shawn Christensen's risible indie drama "The Vanishing of Sidney Hall" is by counting the many ways it grates as both an agonized-artist pity party and a male fantasy of envied power.

A tortured mystery dripping with pretentiousness.

There's a lot of mysteries to solve here, but the most important one is whether or not anyone will find a worse film released in 2018.