REVIEWS

Post-film thoughts.

The Travel Companion: Free Flights vs. Friendship
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The Travel Companion: Free Flights vs. Friendship

The Travel Companion, which premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, follows Simon (Tristan Turner), a struggling indie filmmaker who gets free flights due to his airline employee best friend and roommate, Bruce (Anthony Oberbeck). This benefit becomes shaky when Bruce starts dating Beatrice (Naomi Asa), a more accomplished filmmaker.

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The Crowd (جماعت): Defiant Joy
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The Crowd (جماعت): Defiant Joy

A vertical video, clearly taken on a cellphone, of a chic millennial apartment. We pan over a group of friends dancing, goofing off, giggling. There is food and drink. One girl is singing. The opening scene of The Crowd resembles the kind of thing you could find on the camera roll of most people between the ages of 21 and 35 today. But by the end of the film, even this typical scenario feels like a statement of resilience.

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Underland: Immersive Subterranean Cinema
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Underland: Immersive Subterranean Cinema

Underland premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and is based on Robert Macfarlane’s novel of the same name. Director Robert Petit captured the stunning visuals and philosophical implications of various “underlands” or subterranean caves, storm drains, and even a lab two kilometers below the Earth’s surface.

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Invention: Gray and Fading Memory
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Invention: Gray and Fading Memory

Directed by Courtney Stevens and co-written by Stevens and star Callie Hernandez, Invention fascinatingly blurs the line between documentary, surrealism, and melodrama. Hernandez plays “Carrie” Hernandez, a semi-fictionalized version of herself in a semi-fictionalized portrayal of her emotional journey after the passing of her estranged father.

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The Wedding Banquet: A Beloved Queer Text, Refreshed
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The Wedding Banquet: A Beloved Queer Text, Refreshed

Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet is an ambitious and multi-layered adventure. Against themes of queer and cultural identity, found and chosen family, the story deconstructs its characters to their most vulnerable forms and their actors bring to the table a well of lived experience and intelligence that acts as the glue pulling everything together.

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Mickey 17: Subtlety Is Dead—And Should Be
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Mickey 17: Subtlety Is Dead—And Should Be

Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has died 16 times. He is what they call an “expendable”—his sole purpose to be a test subject, to die and be reprinted for humanity’s needs. It’s the 2050s and humans have hopped on spaceships to escape capitalism and a dying Earth. Four years into the expedition, Mickey is now the eponymous Mickey 17.

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Trap: The Fangirl Experience
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Trap: The Fangirl Experience

Trap follows a serial killer who attends a pop concert with his daughter only to discover the whole event is an attempt to catch him. But I’m not interested in discussing the protagonist or the overall plot. Because what struck me —and stuck with me—most about the thriller is how respectfully Shyamalan treats his preteen fangirl character.

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Rains Over Babel: Eclectic Retribution and (Literally) Dancing With the Devil
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Rains Over Babel: Eclectic Retribution and (Literally) Dancing With the Devil

Rains Over Babel (2025) is director Gala del Sol’s feature film debut at Sundance 2025, and what an intimately enthralling and adventurous debut it is. Through three separate character arcs that are also closely interwoven with each other, the film highlights the trials of not just coming to terms with your identity but being able to openly embrace it and celebrate it with the people who matter.

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DJ Ahmet: Against All Odds
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DJ Ahmet: Against All Odds

Georgi M. Unkovski, in his first feature-length film, brings us to the country of North Macedonia to show us the life of music in their corner. DJ Ahmet (2025) is about a 15-year-old shepherd boy from a small Macedonian village.

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Sorry, Baby: Finding Good Things Amongst the Bad
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Sorry, Baby: Finding Good Things Amongst the Bad

Divided into chapters and in jumbled-up chronology, Sorry, Baby takes us back in time to show us the ghost, and then through the years between then and the present. Years are defined by chapter titles and defining incidents: “The Year With the Bad Thing,” “The Year with the Questions,” “The Year with the Good Sandwich.” What emerges is a slow, vibrant picture of a life before, during, and after trauma, shown to us in glimpses.

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Rocky’s: Familiarity, Nostalgia, and Friendships That Remain Timeless
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Rocky’s: Familiarity, Nostalgia, and Friendships That Remain Timeless

As Charlie drives into the parking lot of Rocky’s, the delicatessen where he spent his childhood years growing up, he runs into his friends—figures from the past who create tension and conflict at first. Through difficult conversations, long-due confrontations, and a good amount of snacking on sandwiches, we watch the estranged group transition back into a crew, a group of friends who are there for each other through thick and thin.

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