
I know that this isn't supposed to be an endearing character moment, but well, it's really not endearing.

well, I'd better not) as a home-made bomb, complete with a time-piece and stray red wires. Like when he jokes around with Tina by disguising a tin of grubs (which he uses to feed his. He knows that he's not human, and that makes him act out. Vore is supposed to be Tina's counterpart because he's unapologetic about what makes him different.

Look at the way that Milonoff smiles at Tina: it's a knowing smile, one that reveals more about Vore's unabashed randiness than it does about his character's defensive prickliness. Vore is pretty unsettling, and not just because he looks like Phil Hartman in his Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer get-up. That all changes when Vore-a mysterious traveler who confuses Tina's otherwise unerring nose-visits her at her job. You might be wondering: what is this mysterious super-power? It's a mystery, for while, since Tina doesn't know where she comes from. This technique is pretty helpful for a border patrolwoman: she uses her supernatural smelling abilities to ferret out a teenage smuggler, a child pornographer, etc. At her job, she smells passing travelers, sniffing for "shame, guilt, rage," or other heightened dark vibes. We see the ugly, mundane world through her eyes (lit mostly with an antiseptic silver-green/blue color palette): people at her job are anonymous because all she can think about is her own inexplicable behavior and unflattering appearance. Sadly, their mutually exaggerated appearances-as well as how their monstrous nature is mercilessly sensationalized by writer/director Ali Abbasi and his co-writers Isabella Eklof and John Alvide Lindqvist-is so off-putting that I often found it hard to sympathize with Tina and Vore.

They even look alike: both have pronounced (prosthetic) brows, puffy cheeks, and jagged snaggleteeth. Tina and Vore are two of a kind, as they soon discover.
