Culture Representation: Taking place in 2015, primarily in Rosemead, California, the dramatic film “Rosemead” (inspired by true events) features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people, African Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A widow doesn’t know how to cope with her teenage son’s schizophrenia, as his mental illness gets worse in the days leading up to his 18th birthday.
Culture Audience: “Rosemead” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Lucy Liu and dramas about families struggling with the mental illness of a family member.
“Rosemead” (a drama based on a true story) takes an unflinching look at the unraveling of a family where a widow feels increasingly helpless about her teenage son’s schizophrenia. The movie also examines cultural stigmas about mental illness. “Rosemead” is meant to be somber and disturbing, as a way to bring awareness to warning signs that could lead to a tragedy.
Directed by Eric Lin and written by Marilyn Fu, “Rosemead” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie, which takes place in 2015, is named after the city of Rosemead, California (a Los Angeles suburb), where the main characters live. The movie was filmed in Los Angeles. The “Rosemead” screenplay is based on a 2017 Los Angeles Times article written by Frank Shyong. The title of the article won’t be listed in this review because it’s spoiler information for what happens at the end of this movie.
“Rosemead” is told mostly from the perspective of widow Irene Chao (played by Lucy Liu), who is the owner and operator of a small shop called I&G Printing, located at a strip mall. Irene used to own the shop with her husband Charles, who died of cancer. Irene also has cancer, but she doesn’t want to tell her 17-year-old son Joe (played by Lawrence Shou) because he has some serious health issues of his own.
Joe has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He is on prescribed medication (which he is reluctant to take) and has a therapist named Dr. Hsu (played by James Chen), who is a compassionate and helpful. In the beginning of the movie, Irene resists Dr. Hsu’s advice for Irene to attend therapy sessions with Joe. Eventually, she agrees to attend.
Irene is a Chinese immigrant who grew up to believe that mental illness is a stigma that can be blamed on the parents of the person with the mental illness. Therefore, she feels guilty from the mistaken belief that she caused Joe’s schizophrenia. Irene doesn’t completely believe or trust the American medical way of dealing with schizophrenia, but she thinks it’s the best option under the circumstances.
Joe’s medical treatment is partially paid for through a public funding program at a Chinese cultural center where Irene is a member. Irene rejects a suggestion from her close friend Kai-Li (played by Jennifer Lim) to consult with a shaman to “cure” Joe of his schizophrenia. Kai-Li is one of the few people whom Irene has told about Joe’s mental illness. Irene is Joe’s only family member who lives in the area.
Irene likes to keep secrets, and it hurts her pride to ask for help. Another secret that she’s keeping is that she doesn’t want to tell Joe that she’s selling the shop because she needs the money. In the beginning of the movie, the only people who know that Irene has cancer and is going through experimental treatments for it are Irene and her medical care professional Dr. Renée Carlot (played by Susan Pourfar), who warns Irene that only 10 to 20% of cancer patients getting the same experimental treatment had had a positive clinical response to the treatment.
Joe is in his last year at Rosemead High School (a public school), where he’s been a star on the school’s swim team. But lately, he’s been having episodes of hearing voices and feeling paranoid that someone is out to harm him. During the course of the movie, Joe’s outbursts and episodes get worse. He also makes disturbing drawings depicting monsters and violence.
Joe’s closest friends at school—Stan (played by Anzi DeBenedetto) and Jeannie (played by Madison Hu)—are concerned and alarmed when they see Joe abruptly leave a classroom, and they find him running around in the school hallway shouting, “Get away from me!” Joe ends up committing vandalism by trashing and breaking objects in an empty room that is undergoing remodeling at the school.
This violence is caught on surveillance video. Joe has also been caught on surveillance video sneaking into the school’s swimming pool area after the area is closed and off-limits to students. Joe was given a key the swimming pool room because he was a trusted student on the school’s swim team.
These incidents lead to a meeting that Irene has with the school’s Principal Stephens (played by Dave Shalansky) and one of Joe’s teachers named Mr. Hernandez (played by Jason Tottenham), who is rooting for Joe to succeed. Principal Stevens recommends to Irene that Joe transfer to a school that is better-equipped to handle students with behavioral problems. Irene adamantly rejects this suggestion. But time is running out because she knows that when Joe turns 18, and he becomes a legal adult, she can no longer control what kind of treatment he gets.
“Rosemead” is a “slow burn” movie that sneaks up on viewers by showing how Irene thinks she has certain things under control and her gradual recognition that some things are out of her control. Liu’s performance is especially effective when depicting the shame and denial that people often feel when they feel responsible for the mental health of someone they love. Irene uses the fact that English is not her first language as a way to appear vulnerable or strong, depending on the situation.
Shou’s performance as Joe gives nuance to portraying what it could be like to live with schizophrenia. Just like his mother, Joe often thinks he can be in control of his mental illness. However, when he has episodes of paranoid delusions, he’s aware that he’s lost control. And it causes him to spiral even more into despair.
One of the things that Joe uses to cope is a memory of a time when he was 12 years old, and Joe, Irene and Charles stayed in a place called the Sunset Hills Motel while their home experienced a power outage. Joe has a vivid recollection of how happy they all were and remembers seeing his father doing karaoke and dancing in their motel room. Not all of “Rosemead” is gloom and doom. Joe and Irene have a very close and loving relationship and experience some good times together.
However, this family bonding is compounded by their shared grief of losing Charles. Irene’s anxiety about her terminal illness and her fear about what will happen to Joe after she dies add to the pressure-cooker situation, as both Irene and Joe feel like their lives are falling apart. It’s best not to reveal any information about how “Rosemead” ends except to say that this impactful movie packs a significant emotional punch and offers plenty of meaningful things to think about for people who know anyone going through similar struggles.
Vertical released “Rosemead” in select in New York City on December 5, 2025, and in Los Angeles on December 12, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on January 9, 2026.
Directed by Jennifer Tiexiera and Gabriela Cavanagh
Some language in Spanish with subtitles
Culture Representation: Filmed in 2023 and 2024, the documentary film “Rebbeca” features a predominantly Latin group of people (with a few white people) discussing the life and career of Latin music singer Becky G.
Culture Clash: Becky G, whose real name is Rebbeca Gomez, tours in support her first regional Mexican music album (2023’s “Esquinas”), while experiencing challenges in her personal life, including her complicated feelings about her estranged father, who has addiction issues.
Culture Audience: “Rebbeca” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Becky G and popular music stars from Generation Z.
Becky G in “Rebbeca” (Photo by Gabriela Cavanagh/Trafalgar Releasing)
Rebbeca is a somewhat bland but watchable documentary about singer Becky G. The movie’s tone tends be like a promotional video. The best parts of the film are when she gets candid and vulnerable about her troubled family history.
Directed by Jennifer Tiexiera and Gabriela Cavanagh, “Rebbeca” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie’s title refers to Becky G’s real name, which is Rebbeca Gomez. It’s not a comprehensive documentary but rather it’s more of a “year in the life” documentary that chronicles what Becky G’s life was like from 2023 to 2024, when this documentary was primarily filmed. Becky G is the movie’s narrator.
Becky G was born on March 2, 1997, in Inglewood, California, the working-class city where she was raised. She first became known to an international audiences in 2011, when at the age of 14, she began uploading YouTube videos of her singing cover songs. Some of the videos went viral. And within a year, she was signed to Sony Music’s RCA Records.
Her career as a major-label recording artist started in 2012, when she began releasing several singles as the lead artist. She has released music in English and in Spanish and is best known for her Spanish-language music. Her first breakout hit song was 2014’s “Shower.” She had even bigger hits with 2017’s “Mayores” (a duet with Bad Bunny) and 2018’s “Sin Pajama” (a duet with Natti Natasha), which both went multiplatinum in several countries.
Becky’s first studio album (“Mala Santa”) wasn’t released until 2019, but it was an immediate hit on the Latin music charts. Her subsequent albums so far (2022’s “Esquemas,” 2023’s “Esquinas” and 2024’s “Encuentros”) have had declining sales, but she is still a fairly big star in the music business. “Rebbeca” chronicles the making of “Esquinas” (her first album of regional Mexican music) and her first headlining tour: 2023’s “Mi Casa, Tu Casa,” a nearly sold-out U.S. trek that played in large theaters in September and October of that year.
“Rebbeca” begins with Becky G saying in a voiceover that someone once told her that she is “the biggest pop star you’ve never heard of.” Becky G says, “And I thought ‘Damn.’ Before I’m Becky G, I am Rebbeca.”
It sounds very scripted, but what she’s essentially saying is that in Spanish-speaking communities, Becky G is a famous name. In communities that don’t know or don’t care about Latin music artists, she’s still relatively unknown. She might never become a mainstream pop superstar, but she’s still Rebbeca Gomez before she’s Becky G.
Even so, this documentary shows that Becky G makes a considerable effort to become more mainstream to bigger audiences beyond her core fan base. Her first headlining tour is one major indication. Another indication is her recording collaborations with numerous artists who are bigger names in the music business, such as Bad Bunny, Maluma (on “La Respuesta”) and Karol G (on 2022’s “Mamii”).
She also recorded the song “The Fire Inside” (written by Diane Warren) for the 2023 movie “Flamin’ Hot,” a comedy/drama about the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos creator Richard Montañez. Warren is known for getting several Oscar nominations for songs that she’s written for movies. And when “The Fire Inside” was nominated for an Oscar, Becky G performed the song at the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony, as shown in the “Rebbeca” documentary.
Other songs performed by Becky G in the documentary include “Dolores,” “Cries in Spanish,” “Gomez x 4,” “Los Astros,” “Mala Santa,” “Mayores,” “Shower” and “Sin Pajama.” The performance footage is shows her charisma. However, it’s very debatable if Becky G is talented enough to become a superstar. She certainly has what it takes to have a successful career in the music business for many more years.
In the documentary, Becky G talks a lot about her dual heritage of being Mexican American by saying she has a “200%:” identity: “100% Mexican and 100% American.” She says it took a while to convince her business team that she should do a regional Mexican album. Becky G comments that she likes the raw storytelling of regional Mexican music. She cites Selena as her biggest musical influence. Other artists who’ve influenced her are Ana Gabriel and Jenni Rivera, according to what Becky G says in the documentary.
Even though the “Rebbeca” documentary shows members of Becky G’s entourage, the documentary is more about telling her story in the context of her family. She describes her mother Alejandra “Alex” Gomez this way: “She’s my best friend … If I could be half the woman my mom is, I’d be honored” And she marvels that at the age of 23, Alex was already a mother of four children. Becky G is the eldest of these four children.
Alex is featured prominently in the movie and says that she and Fransisco “Frank” Gomez Jr. (Becky G’s father) got married when Alex was 18, and Alex was the one who proposed marriage to Frank. (Alex and Frank are now divorced.) Although Becky G’s grandmothers Cruzita (nicknamed Ita) and Guadalupe (nicknamed Lita) are seen in the “Rebbeca” documentary, Becky G and her parents are the only people interviewed in the movie.
Long before Becky G found fame on YouTube, she began performing while still in elementary school. Becky G insists that she, not her parents, was the one pushing herself to go into showbiz, even if the odds were stacked against her. Her family didn’t have a lot of money and had no connections in the entertainment industry.
At one point in her childhood, Becky G and her family lived in a garage, where she gave some of her earliest live performances. Becky G says in the documentary that some of her best memories in life are when she and her family lived in this garage. It probably wasn’t fun for her parents, but children who grow up in near-poverty often have different memories that aren’t fully conscious of any financial struggles that their parents had to experience.
There were bigger problems in the family, which Frank confesses to when he says that his drug addiction was one of the main reasons for his failed marriage to Alex, who says she held on to the marriage for as long as she could. Frank says of his addictions: “It was cocaine and booze initially.” Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he says he became addicted to meth. “It was bad decision making,” Frank says. “Alex and the kids became collateral damage.”
Alex says that she could’ve handled Frank’s addiction issues, but the breaking point for her was Frank’s infidelities. Alex says during their 25-year marriage, she was addicted to Frank and had a hard time getting over him. Alex comments, “Becky took on the responsibility of being the provider for not only myself but for her siblings as well.” Usually, when a young person who’s a celebrity has this much responsibility to financially support several members of the family, it doesn’t end well.
There seems to be a certain amount of denial of about how this co-dependency isn’t healthy for a family. Can’t these family members who are old enough to work get their own jobs, instead of leeching off of Becky G by expecting her to financially support them? It’s probably why Becky G considers the time when her family was in near-poverty some of the happiest memories in her life, because she didn’t have the burden of being the family’s breadwinner. These issues aren’t addressed at all in the documentary, which is why the movie comes across as a bit of a puff piece.
One family member who isn’t benefiting from Becky G’s celebrity income is Frank. Becky G says in the documentary: “I’ve cut him off completely, except for him getting [addiction rehab] treatment.” Becky G says that her father was her first heartbreak.
There are also many things left unsaid that indicate Becky G has gone through a lot of emotional pain, despite the perky persona that she often has when she’s on camera. In one part of the documentary, she says she had a “mid-life crisis at 9 years old,” but she doesn’t elaborate. She also says she remembers feeling as a child that she was aware of mental-health issues that her parents had, but she felt helpless to do anything about it.
“Rebbeca” is also vague about the on-again/off-again relationship between Becky G and soccer player Sebastian Lletget. (He is not in the documentary.) The couple began dating in 2016 and got engaged to each other in 2022. Becky says that she and Lletget have similar backgrounds. Alex tearfully comments about the couple’s relationship: “I know they’re working through a lot, and it’s not easy in the public eye, but they’re both deserving of their own beautiful love story.”
In between these veiled references to trouble behind the scenes, the documentary shows performance clips and carefully curated footage of Becky G off stage, doing things like having friendly chats with her employees or greeting some of her fans. Even though Becky G is the narrator of the movie, her parents are the ones who give more insight into her life than she does. When Becky G is ready to do a more soul-baring documentary where she’s completely honest in showing what her life is really like behind the scenes, then people might think she’s more relatable.
In a documentary about a celebrity, people like to hear unique insights from the celebrity instead of the celebrity just giving the usual generic comments about being grateful for fans or the celebrity saying how much they love whatever current project that they’re trying to sell to the masses. Until then, Becky G comes across in “Rebbeca” as a typical social-media-conscious celebrity who wants to present an Instagram version of her life in a documentary—snapshots and glimpses that are attractive to look at but don’t offer a lot of depth beyond some musings that sound scripted.
Trafalgar Releasing released “Rebbeca” in U.S. cinemas for a limited engagement on December 10 and December 13, 2025. Netflix will premiere the movie on December 21, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the comedy/drama film “The Best You Can” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A divorced security guard and an unhappily married urologist develop an unlikely friendship and growing romantic feelings for each other, as the urologist’s husband has failing health.
Culture Audience: “The Best You Can” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedy/drama movies about people who find love in middle-age.
Kyra Sedgwick, Judd Hirsch, Olivia Luccardi and Kevin Bacon in “The Best You Can” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
“The Best You Can” is a predictable but appealing comedy/drama about a divorced security guard and an unhappily married urologist whose unlikely friendship turns into something more. The performances and amusing banter are the main reasons to watch. This is the type of movie where you know how the story will end within the first 15 minutes of watching. The trailer for “The Best You Can” also gives away about 85% of the movie’s plot.
Written and directed by Michael J. Weithorn, “The Best You Can” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie takes place in New York City, where “The Best You Can” was filmed on location. “The Best You Can” is the first movie that real-life spouses Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick have co-starred in together since 2004’s “The Woodsman.” Bacon and Sedwick (who’ve been married since 1988) are also two of the producers of “The Best You Can.”
The concept for “The Best You Can” is fairly simple, but it gets stretched by a lot of the up-and-down relationships and ambivalent feelings that the main characters experience with each other. Dr. Cynthia Rand (played by Sedgwick), the urologist in this story, is stuck in a crumbling marriage to retired attorney Warren Rand (played by Judd Hirsch), who is 83 years old. Cynthia met Warren when she was in her early 30s, and he was 57. They do not have any children together.
Warren was the assistant chief counsel to the committee that investigated the Watergate scandal in 1973. It’s Warren’s main claim to fame. He’s been trying for years to get a book published about his Watergate experience. His latest manuscript has been rejected by a book publisher, which considers the book’s topic to be irrelevant to today’s book consumers.
Cynthia, who is now in her late 50s, is Warren’s second wife. He divorced his first wife to be with Cynthia. It’s implied that Cynthia and Warren fell in love and started their affair while Warren was married to his first wife. Warren has a middle-aged adult daughter named Rosemary (played by Heather Burns) from his first marriage.
Not surprisingly, Rosemary (who is only 12 years younger than Cynthia) doesn’t like Cynthia because Rosemary blames Cynthia for the breakup of Warren’s first marriage. Luckily for Cynthia, she doesn’t have to see Rosemary very often because Rosemary (who is a married mother of a tween-age son) lives in Phoenix. Even with this long distance between Cynthia and her stepdaughter Rosemary, the two women still have a tense relationship.
The marriage of Cynthia and Warren is dying because Cynthia has fallen out of love with him. Warren can be cranky and demanding, but he isn’t abusive. Cynthia is starting to have doubts about their age-gap marriage, as well as regrets about her and Warren’s decision not to have children together. Cynthia worries that she doesn’t have much to show for her life except for her career, a comfortable place to live, and a marriage to a man she no longer loves.
There are indications that Warren has dementia. Cynthia privately admits to herself that she’s not emotionally equipped to be Warren’s caregiver. She thinks she’s still young enough to deserve to be in a passionate and vital marriage. However, Cynthia doesn’t want to divorce Warren out of loyalty and because she is the type of person who doesn’t like to admit failure.
Meanwhile, Stan Olszewski (played by Bacon), who is in his mid-to-late 60s, knows all about failure in personal relationships. He’s a divorced dad who is estranged from his 20-year-old daughter Sammi (played by Brittany O’Grady) because he was an absentee father for most of Sammi’s life. Stan and his ex-wife (Sammi’s mother) got divorced when Sammi was 10 years old. After the divorce, Stan lived for two years in Colorado before moving back to New York. During the course of the story, Stan tries to reconnect with Sammi, who is an aspiring singer/songwriter.
Stan is a former police officer who now works for a company called Brooklyn Private Security Patrol, where his job is to drive around neighborhoods for safety checks and to respond to any calls for security protection. In the beginning of the movie, Stan is in a medical exam, where he has been diagnosed with having an enlarged prostate, a medical condition that causes the urge to urinate more often than usual. He is prescribed Flomax and is urged to see a urologist soon, or else his enlarged prostate could result in prostate cancer.
Because of his enlarged prostate, Stan urinates on strangers’ lawns while he’s working. Because he works at night, people usually don’t see him committing this crime. One night, Stan responds to an intruder alert at the home of Cynthia and Warren. It’s a false alarm, but Stan stays a while because he asks to use the restroom in the couple’s house. When Stan mentions that he often has to urinate, Cynthia correctly assumes that Stan has an enlarged prostate. She tells Stan that she’s a urologist and gives him her business card.
Stan makes an appointment with Cynthia, but he doesn’t have enough health insurance to cover the cost of the exam. Cynthia offers to give a price discount to Stan through a “friends and family” medical discount plan that her job provides. Stan is grateful. He and Cynthia start talking about their personal lives and find out that they both have the same birthdate: December 24.
Cynthia and Stan exchange their private contact information. They communicate with each other mostly online and sometimes through phone conversations. It’s the start of a platonic friendship. They flirt a little, and then flirt some more. And it isn’t long before Stan and Cynthia have romantic feelings for each other that neither person wants to admit to right away.
The tentative romance of Stan and Cynthia is a stereotypical case of “opposites attract.” Stan likes to get drunk and smoke marijuana. He admits to Cynthia that he was a hellraiser in his youth, when he was arrested at least once. Cynthia has a history of experimenting with drugs, but she’s a lot more health-conscious than Stan. She likes to keeps her life orderly, in contrast to Stan, who’s accustomed to his life being a bit of a mess.
“The Best You Can” rolls along like a reliable vintage car, with some subplots that elongate the journey along the way. Shortly after Stan meets Cynthia, he begins a “friends with benefits” relationship with a free-spirited grocery store cashier named CJ Moretti (played by Olivia Luccardi), who’s about 30 years younger than Stan. Even though Cynthia has no right to be possessive of Stan, she’s jealous of his relationship with CJ and is offended that he’s dating a woman who’s young enough to be his daughter. Cynthia’s attitude is very hypocritical because Cynthia and Warren have a big age gap in their relationship too.
In a typical sitcom-ish scenario, Cynthia finds herself on a “double date” dinner with Warren, Stan and CJ, for reasons that are shown in the movie. There’s also a somewhat unnecessary subplot of Warren having trouble finding a reliable assistant to help him with his book. And there’s some drama because Rosemary and her family are moving from Phoenix to Cleveland, where Rosemary wants to put Warren in an assisted-care facility.
“The Best You Can” has moments that are very cliché, but the acting is solid and engaging. Because they are married in real life, Bacon and Sedgwick have an easy chemistry with each other that makes the romance between Stan and Cynthia very believable, even though it’s questionable how long the romance between Stan and Cynthia can really last. The supporting cast members (including Ray Romano as Cynthia’s doctor colleague Doug) give perfectly fine performances, but nothing about “The Best You Can” is award-worthy.
The movie doesn’t gloss over the moral dilemmas of an extramarital affair, but “The Best You Can” reaches a conclusion that makes this affair less ethically problematic. (Think of the most obvious thing that could happen, and that’s what happens.) “The Best You Can” can be commended for tackling difficult subject matter (what can happen to a love-starved spouse who’s stuck in a moribund marriage to someone in ill health) that usually isn’t seen in most movies about romantic love. “The Best You Can” doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, but it offers some bittersweet and candid moments showing there’s no age limit on experiencing the awkwardness and thrills of a new romance.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released “The Best You Can” on digital and VOD on November 25, 2025. Netflix will premiere the movie on December 25, 2025.
Culture Representation: The documentary film “I Was Born This Way” features a predominantly African American group of people (with a few white people) who discuss the life and career of Carl Bean, who went from being a professional singer to becoming an archbishop LGBTQ activist.
Culture Clash: Bean (who experienced racism, homophobia and sexual abuse) was often misunderstood, degraded and underestimated when fighting for causes that he advocated.
Culture Audience: “I Was Born This Way” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about lesser-known civil rights activists from the LGBTQ community.
A 1977 promotional photo of Carl Bean in “I Was Born This Way” (Photo courtesy of I Was Born This Way Production LLC)
“I Was Born This Way” is a worthy tribute to Carl Bean, who was an archbishop, former disco singer, and overlooked pioneer in LGBTQ civil rights activism. The documentary’s old interviews with Bean (who died in 2021) and others make it look a bit outdated. These interviews don’t lessen the film’s intentions or the quality of the stories told in the documentary, but “I Was Born This Way” gives the impression that the filmmakers didn’t get more recent interviews before this documentary was released in 2025.
Directed by Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard, “I Was Born This Way” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Bean sat down for an exclusive interview for the documentary, which uses his storytelling as the driving narrative. Several other people who knew Bean and/or were influenced by him are also interviewed for “I Was Born This Way.”
Bean (who is quite a raconteur in this documentary) died of a prolonged undisclosed illness on September 7, 2021. He was 77. Throughout the documentary there is animation showing re-enactments of the stories that Bean and other people tell because many of the stories don’t have enough photos or other archival footage to serve as visual demonstrations. The animation (which is competently made and has some melodramatic moments) might get various reactions from viewers, since this animation takes up a great deal of screen time in the documentary.
The documentary “I Was Born This Way” begins by showing Billy Porter arriving at the home of Chris Jones, who is an archivist of recordings that Bean did when he was a disco/R&B singer in the 1970s. Chris Jones is the son of the late Bunny Jones, who co-wrote Bean’s most famous song: 1977’s “Born This Way.” Porter and Chris Jones meet each other for the first time and greet each other warmly.
Why is Porter at Chris Jones’ home? The documentary shows Porter there to hear unreleased recordings made by Bean and look at some rare memorabilia of Bean. Porter comments in the documentary, “I’m excited to hold history in my hands. This song [‘Born This Way’] was very important … for little gay boys like me.” Much later in the documentary, Porter is seen re-recording the Bean song “Liberation,” a song that was supposed to be the B-side to “Born This Way” but was unreleased because the lyrics to “Liberation” were considered “too gay” at the time.
Grammy-winning musician and Oscar-winning director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has this to say about “I Was Born This Way,” when he comments on the song while looking through vinyl records at a music store: “This song was ahead of its time …. This one song started a revolution.”
In the documentary, Bean tells his life story in chronological order. He talks candidly about his troubled childhood (he grew up in Baltimore), where he survived bullying from his peers, physical abuse from his father, sexual abuse from an uncle (his father’s brother), a suicide attempt by overdosing on pills, and the traumatic aftermath of his mother’s death from a then-illegal abortion. Bean was raised by his godparents because his biological parents were too young when they became parents to Bean.
Bean says, “From a young age, I knew I was different.” He adds, “Music oozed out of me.” Bean mentions that Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (best known for the 1956 hit “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”) had a tremendous influence on him to want to become a professional singer. Bean also says that when he was a child, he was sexually abused “too many times to count.” Bean says when he told his father about the sexual abuse, his father severely punished him. During Bean’s childhood and for much of his life, Bean says he was plagued by frequent nightmares of being chased by a phantom.
Bean’s sister Martha Payne, who says Bean’s childhood nickname was Sammy, has this description of what Bean was like as a child: “He liked doll houses, cheerleading, baton twirling. He never pretended to be anything other than he was.” When Bean was bullied by his peers, Payne says that he took it in stride. “When he was singing, he was at his happiest.”
As a teenager, his suicide attempt led to him being put in a psychiatric ward at a hospital, where his mother happened to work as a custodian. Bean remembers his mother assuring him during this hospital stay that there were other queer kids who existed too. She encouraged him to become a singer.
After he was discharged from the hospital, he went to live with his mother, who had two other kids living with her. Bean says this change in his living situation meant that his socioeconomic status went from “middle-class to working-class poor.” While living with his mother, Bean says he got to know a lot of gay and transgender hustlers and sex workers, who accepted him and made him feel like he was part of a community.
Sadly, tragedy struck when his mother died of an illegal abortion. And to add to this devastating loss, Bean says he was forced to testify against the nurse who administered this abortion when the nurse went on trial for murder. Bean moved to New York City after the trial ended.
The middle of the movie chronicles Bean’s up-and-down journey through the music business. After moving to New York City, he became a gospel singer in Harlem’s Christian Tabernacle Choir. Dionne Warwick, Cissy Houston and Estelle Brown were his mentors at the time. Warwick and Brown are interviewed in the documentary.
Warwick says she was impressed very early on with Bean: “He had an incredible voice.” Brown says, “I learned a lot from Carl regarding homosexuality.” Brown, who was a member of the gospel group the Sweet Inspirations, mentions that she was a closeted lesbian for most of her life, but her friendship with Bean helped her to eventually come out and live openly as a lesbian.
According to Bean, he got tired of his hard-partying lifestyle in New York City, so he relocated to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. He also took his music in secular direction by deciding to perform R&B and later disco. Bean formed a band called Carl Bean and Universal Love, where he was the lead singer. And although the band was signed to ABC Records, which released the band’s 1974 album “Universal Love”), the band couldn’t break through to widespread commercial success. Universal Love drummer Royal Anderson is one of the people interviewed in the documentary
Bean then launched a solo career as a Motown Records artist during the disco craze of the late 1970s. “I Was Born This Way” (written by Chris Spierer and Bunny Jones) was originally recorded by singer Valentino in 1975. Bean’s 1977 version of the song, which was a hit on the disco charts, stood the test of time longer. Bean is the singer who is more likely to be associated with “I Was Born This Way,” which is credited with being the first gay anthem to become a mainstream hit. In the documentary, Iris Gordy—a former Motown Records executive and a niece of Motown founder Berry Gordy—makes brief comments about Bean and “I Was Born This Way.”
Why was “Born This Way” co-written by a woman who identified as heterosexual? Chris Jones explains in the documentary that his mother Bunny Jones had a hair salon and knew a lot of gay/queer people because of the salon. Fun fact: Bunny Jones was the first black woman to own a nationally prominent recording studio in the United States: She founded Astral recording studio in 1971, in New York City’s East Harlem district. Bunny Jones also founded Gaiee Records, which released Valentino’s version of “I Was Born This Way,” and she subsequently sold Gaiee to Motown.
Disco’s popularity, like Bean’s music career, eventually faded. He then made a career transition to being a full-time LGBTQ activist. In 1985, he founded the Minority AIDS Project as a way to help people of color during the AIDS crises. And in response to seeing many LGBTQ people being shunned and bullied by church communities, Bean founded his own queer-friendly ministry— Unity Fellowship Church—and became an archbishop. Unity Fellowship Church, which began in Los Angeles, has expanded its congregations to other U.S. cities.
Lady Gaga gives an emotionally candid interview in the documentary about how her hit song “Born This Way” (the title track of her 2011 second album) was directly influenced by Bean’s version of “I Was Born This Way.” She admits that she didn’t know much about Bean when she first heard the song. Lady Gaga (who is an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ people) comments, “When I learned about what Carl did not just as a singer but as an activist, it made my heart explode.”
The most meaningful parts of the documentary aren’t about the glitz and glamour of showbiz but about how Bean took his pain as an abuse survivor and channeled it into many positive things in his life, including helping people who are often mistreated, abused or neglected. The documentary includes footage of Ben doing some of this activism, as well as his interactions with his vibrant Unity Fellowship Church congregation. Bean’s close confidant Rev. Dr. Russell E. Thornhill is interviewed in the documentary.
Although the documentary shows Bean going into details about many aspects of his life, he doesn’t reveal anything much his love life except to say that he’s gay. Bean briefly mentions he’s been been heartbroken many times, but he doesn’t go into specifics. He takes the same approach about his health issues. Ultimately, “I Was Born This Way” did not have to be a “tell-all” documentary. The movie capably shows that Bean left a very admirable and impactful legacy that changed many people’s lives for the better.
Jungefilm released “I Was Born This Way” in Los Angeles on October 30, 2025.
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” features a predominantly white group of people (with one African American) talking about the life and career of British rock star Billy Idol.
Culture Clash: Billy Idol (whose birth name is William Broad) found fame first with the pop-punk band Generation X and later achieved greater success as a solo artist in the 1980s, but his life was troubled by drug addiction, messy love affairs, a dysfunctional family, and career lows.
Culture Audience: “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Billy Idol, 1980s rock music, and documentaries about celebrities who have longevity in showbiz.
A 1983 photo of Steve Stevens and Billy Idol in “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” (Photo courtesy of Live Nations Productions)
As a documentary, “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” is essentially a cinematic update of Billy Idol’s 2014 memoir, with some added perspectives and a few new revelations. It’s meaningful in some areas and shallow in other areas. Although the movie’s title is attention-grabbing, this title won’t age well when Billy Idol is actually dead. It’s a mostly conventional and solidly made documentary that will be eye-opening only to people who know almost nothing about Idol.
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” has a title that refers to the many near-death situations that Idol has experienced, including drug overdoses in the 1980s and a 1990 motorcycle accident that caused him to get several broken bones. Idol (whose birth name is William Broad) has candidly talked about a lot of his past misdeeds and his recovery from drug addiction in many interviews over the years (such as his 2001 episode of “Behind the Music”) and in his 2014 memoir “Dancing With Myself.” “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” (which had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival) has the same confessions, except it has more people from Idol’s life giving their points of view.
Idol (who was born in Stanmore, England, on November 30, 1955) grew up in a middle-class home. His mother Joan Broad was a homemaker. His father William Broad Sr. was a salesman. Idol has as a sister named Jane Broad, who is interviewed in the documentary. Joan (who died in 2020, at the age of 92) is also interviewed in the documentary, which is an indication of how many years it took to make this film. William Broad Sr. died in 2014, at the age of 90.
In the documentary, Idol describes his father as “a very reserved salesman” who didn’t approve of Idol wanting to be a rock singer. Idol quips, “I’m probably a glorified salesman. The only difference is I make my own product.” Jane Broad has this to say about Idol’s late-teen years: “There was a year or two when my dad didn’t speak to Billy. Billy was going through a phase that my dad didn’t understand.” Idol says much later in the documentary that his father eventually accepted Idol’s career choice after Idol became an affluent rock star, but his father and other family members were very troubled by Idol’s drug addiction.
Joan recalls Idol’s first attempt to look like a rock star was very different from the spiky-haired, bleach-blonde punk that has been his image for decades: “He had John Lennon specs and long hair in those days. He looked terrible.” Idol describes himself as being an average student in school who deliberately didn’t apply himself to reach his full potential because he was interested in things other than school. A famous story about how Idol got his stage surname was that one of his school teachers wrote an evaluation of him that described him as “idle.”
Idol came of age when the punk scene in England was thriving, and he wanted to be part of the action. He says his parents were horrified that he decided to drop out of college to join a punk band. In 1976, after a brief stint as the guitarist for a band named Chelsea, he became the lead singer of Generation X, a band that mixed the attitude of punk with pop-friendly rock songs. Gene October, the former lead singer of Chelsea, is interviewed in the documentary. October is credited with advising Idol to wear contact lenses instead of glasses and to change Idol’s hair color and image into being a sneering blonde punk.
Although some people dismissed Generation X as a pretty-boy punk band because of Idol’s good looks, the group managed to gain popularity because of its live shows. A record deal with Chrysalis Records soon followed. From 1976 to 1981, Idol was a member of Generation X, which released three studio albums when the band existed: 1978’s “Generation X,” 1979’s “Valley of the Dolls” and 1981’s “Kiss Me Deadly,” which was actually Generation X’s fourth recorded album. The band’s third recorded album was shelved and released 17 years after Generation X broke up: the 1998 album “K.M.D. – Sweet Revenge.” The “Generation X” and “Valley of the Dolls” albums were modestly successful in the United Kingdom, but “Kiss Me Deadly” and “K.M.D. – Sweet Revenge” were flops.
The Who guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend gives an interview in the documentary, where he talks about seeing Generation X perform at the Roxy nightclub in London, early in Generation X’s career. “They were really brash and confident and charismatic,” Townshend remembers. “At the Roxy, there was that sense that people were coming there to learn to be punks.”
Idol says that the British punk rock pioneers the Sex Pistols were huge influences on him and Generation X. The documentary has interviews with former Sex Pistols lead guitarist Steve Jones and former Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook, but their brief interview clips don’t have much information to add. Jones says he remembers when Idol was in a punk band called the Bromley Contingent. Cook says about England’s punk scene in late 1970s: “All these bands came from out of nowhere.” The documentary doesn’t mention that Jones, Cook, Idol, and former Generation X band member Tony James became on an on-again/off-again band called Generation Sex, beginning in 2018.
Generation X is mostly remembered for being the band that originally recorded 1981’s “Dancing With Myself,” a song that Idol co-wrote after seeing a guy in a Tokyo nightclub dancing with his reflection in a mirror. Idol re-recorded and released the song as a Chrysalis Records solo artist on his 1981 EP “Don’t Stop,” and it became one of Idol’s signature hits. “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” is the only documentary to have interviews with Idol and his former Generation X bandmates James (bass) and Derwood Andrews (lead guitar), who are each interviewed separately.
James, who used to be in the band Chelsea with Idol, says that there were two factions in Generation X. Idol and James were Generation X’s chief songwriters, who bonded because they were both from middle-class backgrounds. Lead guitarist Andrews and drummer Mark Laff were from working-class backgrounds and bonded with each other. Because Idol and James were the main songwriters for Generation X, they wielded most of the power in the group. Andrews and Laff left Generation X in 1979 because of creative differences and power struggles in the band.
Idol admits in the documentary: “I hijacked Generation X, really. That last Generation X album is the first Billy Idol solo album, really.” James says there was another reason why the band eventually broke up in 1981: “Heroin made us drift apart.” James says when he first met Idol, Idol didn’t smoke, drink alcohol, or do drugs, but that changed quickly. James comments, “I think he felt a pressure from people to be Billy Idol, to be credible.”
Brendan Bourke, a former Chrysalis Records executive who worked closely with Billy Idol in the 1980s, tells a story in the beginning of the documentary about how he saw two different sides of Idol when he first met Idol in 1981. Bourke remembers picking up Idol at John F. Kennedy Airport after Idol decided to relocate to New York City as a solo artist. Bourke says that Idol was very quiet but became very different when Idol was in his full Billy Idol “rock star” persona. “He wasn’t Billy Idol until he was coked up,” says Bourke. “The alcohol and the drugs fueled that persona.”
Idol went public years ago about his drug problems. He says that although he abused many drugs in his life, heroin was his biggest addiction. It was an addiction he battled for most of the 1980s. He overdosed on heroin multiple times. In the documentary, Idol describes a 1984 overdose where he “turned blue.” He remembers the people who were with him at the time brought him up to the building’s roof to stay conscious and didn’t want to call for medical help because they were afraid it would turn into a public scandal that would ruin Idol’s career.
Idol says that when he started doing heroin, many other people in the music scene were also doing heroin. Idol comments that he and other heroin users he knew didn’t think at the time that heroin was very dangerous, and they were using heroin to get into a different mindset. Idol comments, “You think, ‘Maybe [heroin] will unleash something.'”
Former Generation X band member James says that Idol’s heroin addiction started around the same time that Idol got romantically involved with British dancer/choreographer Perri Lister, who would become the mother of their son Willem Broad, born in 1988. Lister (who appeared in some of Idol’s videos, such as 1982’s “White Wedding” and 1984’s “Eyes Without a Face”) had a tumultuous relationship with Idol from 1980 to 1989. Idol (who has never been married) and Lister were living in Los Angeles at the time of their final breakup.
Lister is interviewed in the documentary but doesn’t admit to any role in Idol’s drug addiction. She describes him as “the love of my life,” but says they both cheated on each other during their on-again/off-again relationship. Lister says that Idol was much more jealous and more controlling than she was, and the breaking point for her was when he continued to date other women after the birth of Willem. She also describes Idol as having two sides to him and says his “demon side” would come out when he was in the midst of drug binges.
Much of “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” covers the typical “height of success” and “debauched excess” stories that are in many celebrity documentaries. As many people already know, Idol became a huge star as a solo artist and had his biggest hits in the 1980s, including “Dancing With Myself,” “Eyes Without a Face,” “Rebel Yell,” “To Be a Lover” and his cover version of “Mony Mony.” Idol’s last big hit album was 1990’s “Charmed Life,” which spawned the hit single “Cradle of Love.” He was one of the artists who became synonymous with the early years of MTV (which launched in 1981), as their mutual popularity was fueled by a lot of media exposure and the music videos that MTV used to have in heavy rotation.
At the time, Idol’s drug addiction was an open secret in the music industry but was kept well-hidden from the general public. His biggest public controversies had to do with a few of his music videos—for example, “Dancing With Myself,” which featured exploding zombies, was at one point considered too violent for MTV—and his reputation for being a promiscuous playboy. Idol freely admits that he was living like a sex addict and makes no apologies for it, but he doesn’t go into explicit details in the documentary.
He’s more forthcoming about his drug addiction and tells a story about relapsing during a trip to Thailand, where he says he caused $75,000 in hotel damages. Idol says he briefly cleaned up his illegal drug use after his 1990 motorcycle accident, but it took him many years after that to get clean and sober from heroin and cocaine. His family members tried to help as much as they could, but Idol says the decision to quit and recover has to start with the person who has the addiction. He says he’s quit hard drugs in 2003, but he still admits to smoking marijuana on a regular basis.
Idol also says he’s at peace with his failed attempts to become a movie star. Because of his motorcycle accident, he lost out on playing the T-1000 villain role in 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (a role that went to Robert Patrick), while Idol’s role as Jim Morrison’s friend Cat in 1991’s “The Doors” movie was drastically reduced from being a significant supporting role to a glorified cameo. Idol talks about parting ways with manager Bill Aucoin (who was Generation X’s manager from 1980 to 1981, and who was Idol’s manager from 1981 to 1986) because Idol blames Aucoin for ruining Idol’s chance to have the starring role in the movie adaptation of author Nik Cohn’s 1975 “King Death” fantasy novel, a story about an assassin who becomes a famous entertainer.
Idol claims that Aucoin was addicted to smoking crack cocaine and took the “King Death” movie away from a major studio, in order to make “King Death” an independent film, but the movie never got made. Idol says, “After that, Bill Aucoin disappeared from my life.” (Aucoin died in 2010, at age 66.) Freddy DeMann became Idol’s next manager, but he didn’t last long as Idol’s manager. DeMann says in the documentary: “I knew Billy had severe drug problems, and that’s probably why I was called in.” No one in Idol’s current management team is interviewed in the documentary.
Idol also briefly comments on his 1993 “Cyberpunk” album being a bomb, by saying that it was an album that was ahead of its time in predicting what would become the Internet’s massive influence on society. Idol changed his hairstyle to short dreadlocks for his 1993 “No Religion” tour to promote the “Cyberpunk” album, but he changed it back to his signature spiky hair after the album flopped, and he’s kept that same hairstyle ever since. Idol didn’t release a new studio album after “Cyperpunk” until 2005’s “Devil’s Playground.” “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” has some occasional comments and clips of Idol’s music released since “Cyberpunk,” but the documentary knows that most of the public’s interest in Billy Idol revolves around his 1980s career peak.
Steve Stevens, Billy Idol’s longtime guitarist who became his best-known songwriting collaborator, is interviewed in the documentary, but there’s not nearly enough of him in the movie. It’s perhaps the movie’s biggest flaw: There’s not enough information in “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” about Idol’s songwriting or how he made his hit albums. Unfortunately, the quotes from Stevens that are used in this documentary are utterly forgettable. Keith Forsey, the music producer who worked with Idol for most of the 1980s, is interviewed, but he doesn’t have much information that’s new or insightful.
The documentary’s updated information includes Idol discovering in 2023 that he has a son named Brant Broad, who was born from a brief fling that Idol had with a fan in the mid-1980s. Idol’s daughter Bonnie Blue Broad, whom Idol fathered with another fan during Idol’s 1984 “Rebel Yell” tour, discovered Brant through a DNA test. The end of the documentary shows Idol with all three of his children and being a doting grandfather to the children of Brant and Bonnie.
Celebrities who are interviewed in the documentary mostly give gushing comments about how Idol was an influence to them. These famous fans include Miley Cyrus, Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, Duran Duran bass player John Taylor, Guns N’Roses bass player Duff McKagan, and Fall Out Boy lead singer Patrick Stump. Cyrus says, “I watched Billy Idol like I watched porn. There’s no one hotter or who radiates more sexuality than Billy Fucking Idol.”
Grammy-winning producer Nile Rodgers tells a funny story about how he and Idol were hanging out a nightclub in New York City sometime in 1982, and they saw David Bowie sitting at a table by himself. Idol was eager to meet Bowie and introduced himself and Rodgers to Bowie. Just as he was shaking Bowie’s hand, Idol vomited, and then acted like the vomit was no big deal. Rodgers said that’s when he knew that Idol was one of the “coolest” people he ever met. Rodgers says this meeting led to Rodgers working with Bowie on Bowie’s 1983 smash album “Let’s Dance.”
Other people interviewed in the documentary include former MTV executive John Sykes, “Dancing With Myself” music video director David Mallet, Billy Idol friend/producer John Diaz and Billy Idol friend/personal assistant Art Natoli. The documentary has some anime-styled interludes instead of actors doing re-enactments of the stories told in the movie. “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” is competently made and is a very good introduction for people who are unfamiliar with Idol. Longtime fans will also like some of the interviews. However, it’s not an entirely comprehensive documentary since it tends to let Idol’s “bad boy” stories overshadow further insights into how he created music in his heyday.
Fremantle Media and Live Nation Productions released “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” in select U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Portland, Oregon, and in Moscow, Idaho, the comedy/drama film “Twinless” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two men become close friends after meeting in a therapy group for people grieving over the deaths of their twins, and one of the men has very disturbing secrets.
Culture Audience: “Twinless” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dark comedies that are quirky and artistically made.
Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney in “Twinless” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)
“Twinless” is a compelling mix of a twist-filled psychological thriller and a wickedly dark comedy. Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney give knockout performances as two friends who have a co-dependent relationship after meeting in group therapy. Some of the plot reveals are more surprising than others, but “Twinless” will still make viewers think about how grief and low-self-esteem can cause people to do extreme things.
Written and directed by Sweeney, “Twinless” had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and them screened at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. “Twinless” takes place mostly in Portland, Oregon (where the movie was filmed on location), and briefly in Moscow, Idaho. The story’s timeline is about one year and is told in non-chronological order.
In “Twinless,” Roman (played by O’Brien) and Dennis (played by Sweeney) meet in a Portland therapy group for people who are grieving the deaths of their respective twins. Roman has recently lost his identical twin Rocky (seen in flashbacks and also played by O’Brien), who died when Rocky was mowed down on the street by a hit-and-run driver. Roman’s permanent residence is his hometown of Moscow, Idaho, but he decided to stay a while in Portland (where Rocky lived) to settle some of the legal matters related to Rocky’s death.
Dennis says that he lost his identical twin Dean in a car accident. Dennis tells Roman that Dennis feels tremendous guilt about Dean’s death because Dean had been rushing in his car to pick up Dennis at an airport. Dennis feels that if he hadn’t scolded Dean over the phone for being late, then Dean might not have been speeding, and Dean might still be alive. Dennis says that he and Dean were so close, they were roommates in college.
Roman and Rocky were identical twins but had very different bachelor lifestyles, which led to Rocky and Roman being estranged at the time of Rocky’s death. Rocky was openly gay, had a comfortable job at a tech design firm, and was an intelligent college graduate who spent some time studying in Japan. By contrast, heterosexual Roman is a less-than-smart high school dropout, is frequently unemployed, and directionless in his life. Roman is the type of person who is unaware that his hometown of Moscow in Idaho isn’t the only city in the world with the name Moscow.
Before temporarily relocating to Portland, Roman lived with his prickly mother Lisa (played by Lauren Graham), who is in such deep grief over Rocky’s death, she’s in the type of depression where she finds it difficult to get out of bed. Roman, who always felt inferior to Rocky, perceives Lisa’s depression as an indication that she loved Rocky more than Roman. Other supporting cast members who have standout roles include Dennis’ perky and friendly co-worker Marcie (played by Aisling Franciosi), who works as a receptionist; a gay man named George (played by Chris Perfetti), who had been dating Rocky not long before Rocky died; and Charlotte (played by Tasha Smith), the wisecracking leader of the twin grief support group.
Dennis (who is openly gay and very sarcastic) and Roman (who is heterosexually macho and plain-speaking) quickly become close friends who bond over the losses of their respective twin brothers. About halfway through “Twinless,” it’s revealed that one of these pals has very dark and disturbing secrets that he wants to keep hidden by any means necessary. The well-paced and tension-filled “Twinless” (which has excellent cinematography from Greg Cotten, including artistic use of split-screen imagery) is a fascinating portrait of warped personal reinvention and how it can’t solve someone’s problems if that person still feels empty inside.
Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate released “Twinless” in U.S. cinemas on September 5, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on October 3, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and in New Jersey, the dramatic film “Relay” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some people of Middle Eastern heritage and a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A mysterious loner, who works as a broker in financial settlements from corrupt companies, who uses a relay phone service for disabled people and finds himself getting personally involved with a whistleblower who has damaging information about a data provider company.
Culture Audience: “Relay” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted thrillers about people fighting a corrupt system.
Lily James in “Relay” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)
“Relay” has plenty of suspense and intrigue in this drama about a secretive broker of corrupt companies’ financial settlements and how he gets personally involved with a client. The movie goes a bit off the rails with a plot twist that’s hard to believe. Despite any flaws in the screenplay, the principal cast members carry the movie with their engaging performances.
Directed by David Mackenzie and written by Justin Piasecki, “Relay” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie was filmed on location in New York City and in New Jersey, where the story takes place. It’s the type of movie where viewers should be paying attention to certain details, particularly in the beginning of the movie, in order to fully understand the plot twisty.
“Relay” begins by showing a transaction taking place in a New York City diner. A man named Hoffman (played by Matthew Maher) nervously enters the diner because he’s there to hand over a file of paperwork to someone. The person he’s meeting a corporate executive named McVie (played by Victor Garber), who has the smug and arrogant attitude of someone who’s accustomed to getting his way in life.
Before he hands over the file, Hoffman says to McVie about meeting McView in person: “I thought I’d get to see what evil really looks like, but you look like anyone else.” Hoffman gives the file to McVie and tells McVie that Hoffman’s representatives have a copy of the paperwork. Hoffman warns McVie that if anything happens to Hoffman, law enforcement will get a copy of the paperwork.
Hoffman then asks McVie to take a photo with him. McVie obliges this request and then leaaves. What is going on here? It’s later revealed McVie is an executive from Optimo Pharmaceuticals, and Hoffman is a whistleblower who handed over a phamaceutical report that had damning evidence about the company’s corruption. In exchange, Hoffman was paid a secret financial settlement.
The person who brokered this deal is someone whose name isn’t revealed until the last third of the movie. His name is Ash (played by Riz Ahmed), an enigmatic loner who works as a broker between corrupt companies that want to pay secret financial settlements to whistleblowers. Ash is not an attorney. His personal background information is revealed later in the movie.
After the paperwork exchange between Hoffman and McVie, Ash follows Hoffman through Grand Central Station. To disguise himself from anyone who might be following Ash, Ash changes his clothes from looking like a public transit worker to an everyday guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt and baseball cap.
When Ash goes back to the dingy apartment where he lives and works, he gets a phone call from an unidentified man who says: “We have the report back. You’ve been paid for your services. As long as Hoffman sticks to his side of the deal, we’re done. And by the way, message from my boss: ‘You’re parasitic scum.'”
Meanwhile, a research scientist named Sarah Grant (played by Lily James) has an in-person consultation meeting at the office of a New York City attorney named Mr. Morel (played by Seth Barrish) to see if he would be interested in taking her employee whistleblower case. Sarah explains that she was a senior research scientist at a St. Louis-based data provider company named Cybo Sementis, where she worked for almost 10 years.
Sarah worked on a team that was developing a new wheat strain resistant to insect predation, through precision breeding. The team noticed possible human food data issues and dangerous side effects. Sarah raised these issues with the company’s senior management. As a result, she was demoted and eventually fired.
Sarah took evidence of the company’s corruption and still has this evidence. Mr. Morel says that if she took any company records without consent, it could be considered theft. Sarah says she’s aware of this, which is why she wants to return the evidence in exchange for a confidential financial settlement with Cybo Sementis. Mr. Morel says his law firm wouldn’t be able to take a case, but he knows of “unofficial channels” that can settle this matter.
Mr. Morel gives Sarah a phone number to an anonymous answering service that turns out to be the way to contact Ash. In order to keep his identity and any phone conversations that he as untraceable as possible, Ash uses the Tri-State Relay Service, a call center for hearing-impaired, nonverbal, or have other disabilities. At the Tri-State Relay Service, telephone agents speak words that a caller types out on a screen.
The Tri-State Relay Service has a privacy policy to not record or document the phone calls that come through the company’s call center. And the people who use the relay service are guaranteed confidentiality. Ash is not disabled but her uses the relay service so he doesn’t have to have his voice (disguised or undisguised) heard by the people he’s communicating with on the phone .
A great deal of “Relay” is about the conversations that Ash and Sarah have using Tri-State Relay Service. Ash establishes some rules early on his conversations with Sarah. His number one rule is to obey his orders exactly, no matter how strange the orders might be. It’s all very “cloak and dagger” but Ash has reasons to believe that all of he and his whistleblower clients should be paranoid.
Sarah is constantly being followed by a shady group of four people who appear to work for Cybo Sementis: Dawson (played by Sam Worthington), the group’s leader, sometimes acts like he’s a law enforcement official when he tries to get information. The other people in the group are Rosetti (played by Willa Fitzgerald), Ryan (played by Jared Abrahamson) and Lee (played by Pun Bandhu), who all use various tactics to keep tabs on Sarah. This quartet also seems to want to undermine Ash.
“Relay” has a “race against time” aspect because Cybo Sementis is on the verge of being acquired. The company is valued at $3.2 billion. Needless to say, the company is under intense pressure to squash any negative information before this sale. Sarah’s evidence is damaging enough to permanently ruin Cybo Sementis.
There are many unanswered questions about Ash with only a few details given during the course of the movie. One of them is that he goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. His AA sponsor is a woman named Wash (played Eisa Davis), who helps him when he’s going through some tough moments.
Ash has a rule to not get emotionally involved with his clients. But over time, he becomes very attracted to Sarah. There are early signs of this attraction when Ash keeps looking at the dating app where Sarah has a profile, and he checks her social media to see what kind of social life that she has.
“Relay” can get a little repetitive and dragged-out over this document exchange. The movie stretches the plot because the settlement negotiations (with Dawson as the negotiator for Cybo Sementis) are difficult. The terms of the settlement keep changing. Ahmed and Lily are the obvious standout cast members, because the relationship between Ash and Sarah is the driving force of the story.
When “Relay” is at its best, the performances, editing and cinematography elevate the movie. The plot twist doesn’t ruin the film but it does seem like a twist that’s very contrived and brings up questions that “Relay” doesn’t bother to answer. However, up until this point, “Relay” delivers as a tension-filled thriller that has a lot to say about the dirty business of white-collar corruption.
Bleecker Street released “Relay” in U.S. cinemas on August 22, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on August 11, 1025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in South Dakota, the dramatic film “East of Wall” (loosely based on the lives of real people) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Native Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A widowed mother struggles to keep her horse ranch in business, as she deals with family issues and the dilemma of whether or not to sell the ranch.
Culture Audience: “East of Wall” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies about horse owners and female-led working-class ranch families who are not often depicted in movies.
Jennifer Ehle in “East of Wall” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
“East of Wall” is a quietly impressive “slice of life” semi-biographical drama about the struggles of a widow to keep her ranch in business and her family intact. Some viewers will think the movie is too slow-paced, but the performances have real grit. Many of the “East of Wall” cast members are non-professional actors who are depicting versions of themselves.
Written and directed by Kate Beecroft, “East of Wall” had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where the movie won the NEXT Audience Award. “East Wall” also screened at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie takes place in the Badlands region of South Dakota, where “East of Wall” was filmed on location. Beecroft got the idea for the movie after spending time at the real-life South Dakota horse ranch of the movie’s protagonist.
“East of Wall,” which is filmed almost documentary style, shows a few weeks in the life of Tabatha Zimiga (playing a version of herself) and the people who are closest to her. Tabatha is a widow whose husband John died the previous year. His cause of death is revealed later in the movie. The movie is titled “East of Wall” because Tabatha lives in an unnamed town that’s east of the city of Wall, South Dakota.
Tabatha (who has a feisty but empathetic personality) inherited a 3,000-acre horse ranch that was previously owned by John. She lives at the ranch with her three biological children: son Skylar (played by Wyatt Mansfield), who’s about 17 or 18; daughter Porshia (played by Porshia Zimiga, Tabatha Zimiga’s real-life daughter), who’s about 15 or 16; and 3-year-old son Stetson (played by Stetson Neumann), who is non-verbal. John was the biological father of Stetson, while Porshia and Skylar have different biological fathers who are not in their lives.
Tabatha was an underage teen when she had Skylar. As for Porshia’s biological father, what happened to him is described later in the movie. Tabatha’s youngest child Stetson is technically the heir to the ranch, but since he isn’t old enough to operate it, Tabatha has taken ownership of it. The ranch’s horses are healthy and trained, but they’re not the types of horses that can be considered racing champions or high-breed show horses.
Several wayward teenagers (about seven to nine boys and girls), who are orphaned or who have neglectful parents, also live at the ranch. Some of the teens are almost like unofficial foster children who live at the ranch full-time, while others live at the ranch part-time and come and go as they please. The teenagers help Tabatha, Porshia and Skylar with taking care of the horses and the rest of the ranch.
Tabatha is especially close to a teenager named Jesse Stanz (played by Jesse Thorson) and wants to become his legal guardian. Jesse’s father has been in prison for the past three years. Jesse’s biological mother is unable to take care of him for reasons that aren’t stated in the movie.
Jesse has some issues at his school: He’s close to failing because of an absentee problem. An early scene in the movie shows Tabatha scolding Jesse to be responsible and attend his classes, so he won’t flunk out of school. Much later, “East of Wall” shows Tabatha and Jess in a family court to hear a judge’s decision on whether or not Tabatha can be Jesse’s legal guardian.
Another member of this unconventional family is Tabatha’s bachelorette mother Tracey (played by Jennifer Ehle), a chain-smoking, hard-drinking raconteur who is proud of her homemade moonshine. Tracey doesn’t want to be a traditional grandmother, but she provides no-nonsense emotional support to the people in her life who need it. Tracey is also very protective of her loved ones.
Tabatha has a live-in boyfriend name Clay (played by Clay Pateneaude), whom she’s been dating for the past 18 months. Clay, who’s about 10 years younger than Tabatha, gets along well with everyone and works on the ranch as a horse trainer. He is a loyal and respectful partner. However, in this movie, Clay doesn’t have enough screen time for viewers to get to know more about him.
Much of “East of Wall” is about showing the process of selling the ranch’s horses at horse shows. Porshia and some of the other teenage girls do horse-riding tricks at these shows, in order to entice customers. The teenagers also film themselves riding the horses, or the horses running around at the ranch. The teens post these horse videos on TikTok, as a marketing technique.
Despite these extra efforts to boost sales, Tabatha’s horse ranch is struggling to stay in business because Tabatha’s horses are selling for less than what she needs to make profits. One day at a horse show, Tabatha gets a highly unusual sale for one of her horses: The horse that was being auctioned off went from a $2,000 bid to a $7,000 bid from an enthusiastic buyer.
The buyer is a smooth-talking rancher named Roy Waters (played by Scoot McNairy) from Fort Worth, Texas. After buying the horse, Roy sends a thank-you note to Tabatha and tells her that the horse is great. And then, days later, Roy shows up at the ranch unannounced.
Roy is amiable but he eventually reveals he has an ulterior motive for this sudden friendliness: He wants to buy Tabatha’s ranch. He assures Tabatha that she and all the current ranch workers will keep their jobs under his ownership. Roy also promises that he will give the ranch major upgrades because he can afford it.
Tabatha could really use the money that Roy is offering, and she likes the idea of someone else paying for the upgrades that the ranch needs. However, Tabatha is hesitant to sell the ranch because she wants to keep the ranch ownership in her family. Tabatha feels that selling the ranch would be betraying the legacy of her late husband John.
Roy is especially friendly to Porshia in a slightly creepy way. It’s not because he’s trying to take advantage of Porshia like a predator. Porshia figures out quickly that Roy had a teenage daughter who committed suicide. Without saying it out loud, Roy thinks Porshia reminds him of his daughter. Tabatha isn’t completely comfortable with why Roy likes to spend time with Porshia.
“East of Wall” ambles along, with stops and starts into scenes that look scripted, while other scenes look very improvised. Some of the film’s scenes are very mundane, while others crackle with emotional intensity. One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is when Tracey, Tabatha and several local women are gathered around a fire and share traumatic stories from their personal lives.
“East of Wall” also admirably depicts relationships between the three generations of women in Tabatha’s family. Tracey, Tabatha and Porshia all have mother/daughter squabbles with each other. But they all have an unshakeable love for each other, amid their painful scars from abuse and trauma.
There’s not much of a plot in “East of Wall.” And there are no real surprises in the movie. But thanks to the cast members’ performances—particularly Tabatha Zimiga and Ehle, who are very compelling to watch—”East of Wall” has a raw, authentic and lived-in quality to it. The movie is a not about making any grand statements about life. It’s about showing what people can do when life doesn’t go smoothly and there aren’t always easy answers to problems.
Sony Pictures Classics released “East of Wall” in select U.S. cinemas on August 15, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on August 4, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 1989 to 1990, in Ohio, New Jersey, and Kansas, the comedy/drama film “Everything’s Going to Be Great” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and on Asian person) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A husband and a wife, who have opposite personalities and work as managers of regional performing arts theaters, juggle conflicts in their marriage and conflicts between their two teenage sons, who also have opposite personalities.
Culture Audience: “Everything’s Going to Be Great” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Allison Janney and Bryan Cranston and sometimes-quirky stories about people who love musical theater.
Chris Cooper and Allison Janney in “Everything’s Going to Be Great” (Photo by Peter H. Stranks/Lionsgate)
“Everything’s Going to Be Great” sometimes struggles with balancing comedy and drama in a story about an eccentric family of regional theater managers. However, the principal cast performances enliven an occasionally trite and wandering narrative. The family dynamics in the movie are consistently believable.
Directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Steven Rogers, “Everything’s Going to Be Great” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie takes place from 1989 to 1990, in Ohio, New Jersey, and Kansas. “Everything’s Going to Be Great” was actually filmed in the Canadian province of Ontario.
In the beginning of “Everything’s Going to Be Great,” it’s the spring of 1989 in Akron, Ohio. Buddy Smart (played by Bryan Cranston) is in a middle-school principal’s office with his 14-year-old son Lester “Les” Smart (played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Principal Franklin (played by Cady Huffman) in a meeting to discuss some disciplinary issues about Les at this school. Les is a school misfit who has made some people uncomfortable.
As Principal Franklin explains to Buddy, during a physical education class that was discussing angina during a CPR training session, Les blurted out that “Vaginas make his flesh creep,” says the principal. In Les’ history class, he was assigned a one-page report on the Manifest Destiny. Instead, he turned in a nine-page musical titled “Les Wiz,” set during the French Revolution and inspired by “Les Misérables” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
Buddy scoffs at these complaints and doesn’t think that they’re serious enough for the school principal to have this meeting. “Isn’t nine pages better than one?” Buddy somewhat sarcastically asks Principal Franklin. The principal asks Les to leave the room so that she can talk to Buddy privately.
Principal Franklin tells Buddy that he has to consider the possibility that Les is gay. She says it in a tone as if being gay is something to be ashamed of or is a mental health problem. Buddy says defiantly, “In theater, we don’t care about people’s race or sexuality. [We care] only if they are talented.” Principal Franklin tries to finish the sentence by saying the word “Christian” when Buddy says “talented.”
In the hallway, outside the principal’s office, Les imagines that he sees the late playwright/composer Noël Coward (played by Mark Caven) and is having a conversation with him. Les has these types of short imaginary conversations with different deceased celebrity entertainers throughout the movie, including actress Ruth Gordon (played by Chick Reid), actress Tallulah Bankhead (played by Laura Benanti) and playwright/novelist William Inge (played by David MacLean). It’s a fairly cute gimmick that is sometimes distracting in this movie.
After the meeting with the school principal ends, Les complains to Buddy, “I hate this school. No one gets me.” Buddy tells Les, “You’re a weirdo. It’s not their fault.” Buddy also says that when he was Les’ age, he was an actor too and didn’t fit in at his school either. Buddy assures Les that Les will find “his people” when he goes to high school.
How much of a musical fanatic is Les? During live performances at the theaters that his parents manage, Les frequently walks on stage uninvited and unannounced and joins the cast in performing. An early scene in the movie shows Les doing this type of “stage crashing” during a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.” These interruptions annoy the cast, crew and Les’ mother, but Buddy is more tolerant because he understands Les’ enthusiasm.
Things in the Smart family household are also fraught with tension because Buddy and his wife Macy Smart (played by Allison Janney) are financially struggling and are having many arguments about it. Although the spouses share a love of musical theater, they have opposite personalities. Buddy is an optimist who believes that their problems will eventually be solved. Macy is a pessimist who has become jaded and bitter that they haven’t been able to achieve their dream of producing Broadway musicals.
Buddy and Macy are also fundamentally different when it comes to religion. Buddy is an atheist or agnostic, while Macy is a devoutly religious Christian. Conversations in the movie give indications why Buddy is not religious. It’s mentioned that Buddy’s single mother abandoned him when he was 4 years old, and he was raised by two aunts who were religious fanatics and very cruel to Buddy.
Buddy and Macy have another son—16-year-old Derrick (played by Jack Champion)—who is the opposite of Les. Derrick is a popular football player with a steady girlfriend at his high school, he hates musical theater, and he’s very heterosexual. When an opportunity comes up for the Buddy and Macy to relocate to New Jersey to manage the regional Barn Theater, Derrick is the only one in the family who doesn’t want to move from where they live in Ohio. “All I want is to play football and lose my virginity,” Derrick says.
This job opportunity comes with risks and challenges. It’s a temporary job where the Barn Theater’s owner Ed Monroe (played by Michael Hanrahan) has hired them for the summer to see if Buddy and Macy can boost the theater’s dwindling business. If Buddy and Macy and turn around the theater’s fortune for the better, the spouses will be hired on a permanent basis and get the opportunity to manage his Players Theater in Milwaukee.
Buddy is the most enthusiastic person in the family about this new job offer, but Macy is worried and isn’t easily convinced that it’s is a good idea. For starters, they can’t afford a place to live in New Jersey. And if they don’t get hired on a permanent basis, they’ll be financially ruined.
After some back-and-forth arguing between the spouses, Macy agrees to this relocation. Les is obviously excited about the move because he doesn’t like his life in Akron. In New Jersey, the Smart family ends up illegally squatting in a house. Macy found out through a real-estate connection that the house’s owners will be away for a while and don’t have anyone checking up on the house.
“Everything’s Going to Be Great” shows what happens when the Smart family unexpectedly has to move in with Macy’s farmer brother Walter (played by Chris Cooper) in Macy’s home state of Kansas. The movie takes a much more serious tone during the scenes where the family is in Kansas, and the focus shifts to how Les and Derrick adjust to life at their Kansas high school. Simon Rex has a small but pivotal role as a Barn Theater actor named Kyle.
“Everything’s Going to Be Great” has many of its best-acted scenes with Cranston as Buddy, an unconventional dreamer who is a loving parent but who is often so consumed with his passion for musical theater, it’s taken a toll on his marriage. Whether Buddy is playing bagpipes with Les on a front lawn or encouraging Les’ musical aspirations, it’s a great depiction of unconditional parental love. Janney gives a realistically acerbic performance a Macy, who has become resentful that her life did not turn out the way that she expected and who has insecurities about her physical appearance.
Ainsworth’s portrayal of Les is impressive, even though the movie seems like it can’t decide between telling the story from Les’ perspective or the perspective of his parents. Les’ imaginary conversations with some of his dead idols sometimes seem out-of-place and make him look like a “twee fantasy” kid when there could have been a better exploration of his creative side. There’s that brief mention in the beginning of the movie that he wrote a “Les Wiz” musical, but then the movie doesn’t show any more indications that Les has an artistic side to him, other than being an actor. Any flaws in “Everything’s Going to Be Great” are outweighed by the movie’s mostly capable and engaging way of depicting a family that you can easily imagine as being inspired by people who existed in real life.
Lionsgate released “Everything’s Going to be Great” in U.S. cinemas on June 20, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on July 11, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2010, in the United States, the dramatic film “Sovereign” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Jerry Kane and his 15-year-old son present debt-elimination seminars for the anti-government sovereign citizen movement, and they become embroiled in increasingly dangerous law-breaking activities.
Culture Audience: “Sovereign” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, true crime movies and dramas about radical anti-government extremists.
Dennis Quaid in “Sovereign” (Photo courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment)
Based on true events, “Sovereign” is a tension-filled drama about the mental unraveling of an American anti-government extremist and the indoctrination of his teenage son. The movie has an effective depiction of disillusionment that spirals into violence. The discontent shown by the father isn’t entirely felt by the son, who begins to show indications that he doubts his father’s radical beliefs.
Written and directed by Christian Swegal, “Sovereign” is his feature-film directorial debut. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. “Sovereign,” which takes place in 2010, is based on the true story of widower Jerry Kane and his teenage son Joseph “Joe” Kane, whose fates are shown at the end of the movie. Jerry Kane and Joe Kane were part of the sovereign citizen movement, which believes that an individual’s rights supersede many government laws.
“Sovereign” (which was filmed in Arkansas) changes a few details in the movie from what happened in real life. In the movie, Jerry Kane (played by Nick Offerman) and Joe Kane (played by Jacob Tremblay) have life-changing encounters with law enforcement in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In real life, these encounters took place in West Memphis, Arkansas. In the movie, Joe is 15 years old, not 16 years old, which was the age that the real Joe Kane was at the time certain events took place in 2010.
Jerry is constantly angry at the government and believes that governments can’t be trusted because “they lie to you.” He speaks in deliberate and measured tones, that can turn into shouting when he loses his temper. Jerry has a parenting style where he praises introverted Joe (his only son) but also gruffly teaches Joe to follow and believe everything that Jerry says. Jerry calls Joe a “boy genius” but Jerry has contempt for Jerry’s deceased father. Jerry tells Joe that Jerry’s father “turned into a coward” who believed in following government rules.
Joe’s mother died when Joe was 10 years old. The movie doesn’t state her cause of death, but in real life, she died of pneumonia. “That’s the one thing your mom and I did right,” Jerry tells Joe. “We made you. You are a true love child.” There are indications that Joe is starting to doubt what Jerry teaches, but Joe’s needs to have his father’s respect and approval prevent Joe from openly questioning Jerry.
People in the sovereign citizen movement don’t believe in paying taxes or following laws and other government rules. One of the things that Jerry tries to instill into Joe is that as state citizens, they don’t have to follow federal laws. But Jerry also comes up with excuses not to follow state laws too. For example, Jerry doesn’t have a driver’s license because he thinks he has the right to drive without a license simply because he knows how to drive.
In the beginning of the movie, the Kanes’ mortgaged house is in foreclosure. A financial institution called Sun Mutual Bank will seize ownership of the house, which will be auctioned off in 30 days. Jerry owes $38,400 plus interest to the bank.
“The bank is just a clearinghouse,” Jerry tells Joe. “They don’t hold the underlying note.” Jerry says that he’s going to file an affidavit of truth to get back control of the house. Jerry has trained Joe (who is homeschooled) on what to do if officials show up at the house when Jerry isn’t there. Later in the movie, Jerry is shown representing himself in court. It goes as badly as you would expect.
Jerry used to be a roofer, but he currently makes money by doing traveling seminars with Joe on how to eliminate debt. These seminars are really just lectures on the sovereign citizenship movement and how to avoid paying debts by ignoring laws. These speaking appearances preach to the converted or try to recruit those who are curious and interested.
Jerry and Joe wear white suits at these seminars, as if they’re actual preachers. But what they preach is a radical form of government resistance that includes telling followers that the name that the government has for someone is merely a “straw man” that doesn’t reflect that person’s true identity. Jerry says during a seminar lecture: “What we’re after is not fighting. It’s conquering. I mean, I don’t want to kill anybody. But if they keep messing with me, I’m afraid that’s what it’s going to come down to.”
Meanwhile, as Jerry is mentoring Joe in the business of being a recruiter in the sovereign citizen movement, another father is also mentoring his son who is in his father’s same line of work. John Bouchart (played by Dennis Quaid) is police chief of the Tulsa Police Department, where his son Adam Bouchart (played by Thomas Mann) is a police officer. John, who has a no-nonsense personality on the job, first encounters Jerry in a police interrogation room after Jerry gets pulled over on the road for traffic violations and is arrested.
Jerry’s financial struggles and his feud with the bank and set off a chain of events that turns into a tragedy. Jerry’s rage at the government also has a lot to do with his troubled background (including previous criminal record) that is mentioned but not fully detailed in the movie. Jerry seems to blame government for the death of his baby daughter named Charity, who was born several years before John was born. A scene in the movie shows Joe getting upset when Jerry prays out loud to Charity while Joe is in the same room.
In another scene in the movie Jerry mentions that he has an addictive personality and he’s been “clean and sober” for several years. Whatever substances that Jerry was addicted to in the past, “Sovereign” shows with unflinching intensity that he is now addicted to the sovereign citizen movement. One of his enablers is a sovereign citizen movement follower named Lesley Anne (played by Martha Plimpton), who has a “friends with benefits” relationship with Jerry. Lesley Anne doesn’t hesitate to bail Jerry out of jail when he calls her for help.
Because “Sovereign” is intensely focused on the relationship between Jerry and Joe, female characters the movie aren’t fully developed. John and Adam have happy marriages, but John’s wife Patty Bouchart (played by Nancy Travis) and Adam’s wife Jess Bouchart (played by Ruby Wolf) are stereotypical loyal wives of cops. Joe has a crush on a teenager named Candace Jeffers (played by Kezia DaCosta), whom he keeps track of on social media but he’s afraid to tell his father about this crush.
Thanks to capable filmmaking and standout performances from Offerman and Tremblay, “Sovereign” skillfully gives viewers a sense of the emotionally claustrophobic environment that Jerry puts Joe in at home and during their travels. The film is also a study in irony, because even though Jerry frequently rants about how oppressive the government is, Jerry has a very oppressive way of raising Joe. Some of the movie’s pacing is a little slow, but “Sovereign” builds an atmospheric tone of dread by showing that whatever war Jerry thinks he’s in, there are ultimately no real winners.
Briarcliff Entertainment will release “Sovereign” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on July 11, 2025.
