Eagle vs Shark

Eagle vs Shark (2007) is a New Zealand romantic comedy you can watch online on iFILM. It is the debut feature from Taika Waititi — years before Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit — starring Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords and Loren Taylor.

Lily works the counter at a fast-food restaurant and has had a quiet crush on Jarrod, the socially oblivious computer-game enthusiast who comes in regularly. After a costume party brings them together, she follows him to his hometown — where he has a grudge to settle with the bully who made his school years miserable. His family is eccentric in ways she didn't anticipate. Jarrod himself turns out to carry more bruises than his bluster suggests.

Waititi made an off-kilter, deadpan love story that works because its characters are genuinely odd without being played for mockery. It sits alongside Napoleon Dynamite and Eagle Rock as proof that romantic comedy lands hardest when it refuses to be slick. Watch Eagle vs Shark (2007) online on iFILM.