The Ballad of Wallis Island (dir, James Griffiths)

I have run screaming from my first Sundance movie and of course it’s the one about an awkward, boundary-free, pun-loving millionaire (Sian Clifford) who bribes his favorite musician (Tom Basden) to come to a remote island to play his old songs with his ex (Carey Mulligan) on a remote Welsh island. Somehow the whole setup is apparently indended to be sweet and not a complete cringe-inducing horror of the howling fantods variety. There was so much warm laughter in my screening, that I can acknowledge that maybe the problem is me.

The Ballad of Wallis Island played as an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has additional screenings in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the festival.

By Design (dir, Amanda Kramer)

Impossibly, this movie about Juliette Lewis turning into a “stunning” wood chair and everyone liking her better that way is even stupider and less watchable than the logline suggests! It’s as if The Substance was just the stultifying footage of the lifeless one’s inanimate body’s off-week, gratingly by Melanie Griffith, and also with dance sequences. After about 45 minutes I felt like I’d taken enough punishment, so this was a Sundance walk-out for me.

By Design played as an official selection of the NEXT program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is available for online viewing from January 30-February 2.

Jimpa (dir, Sophie Hyde)

Taking its title from an affectionate nickname for their grandfather, Jimpa is an extremely personal recollection populated by a spectrum of magic pixies who, through the power of memory, are always at their kindest & most correct. John Lithgow is a charmer in the title role of an ever-provocative gay man who left his family behind in Australia to advance his career in Amsterdam. The movie finds him reuniting with his daughter and “grandthing” (a non-binary teen played by the director’s own child) who’s also dreaming of a gap year of reinvention. Although it loses itself in multi-generational representation, Olivia Colman always finds interesting notes in the sea of nice.

Jimpa played as an official selection of the Premieres section at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. It is only available in person.

Magic Farm
(2024 | Argentina/USA | Amalia Ulman | 93 minutes)

Without breaking embargoes Magic Farm — about a hapless documentary film crew including fading icon Chloe Sevigny and overly sensitive manbaby Alex Wolff as fraying producer — manufacturing trends in rural Argentina while forming unexpected connections with locals is maybe the most Sundancey film to play at this year’s Sundance.

Rabbit Trap played as an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has additional screenings in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the festival.

Middletown (dirs., Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine)

In the early 1990s a law school dropout turned passionate English teacher was handed a bunch of video cameras and and production equipment. He turned his upstate New York classroom into a television studio, created an elective course in electronic journalism, and set the misfits, creatives, and rabble rousing students who gravitated to him to explore the bounds of this newly-available technology. News reports on the cheerleading squad and lip-sync music videos soon turned to an opt-in class project to investigate the town’s landfill and the gross runoff bubbling up in basements. Having previously made contemporary documentaries about ambitious youth (Boys State and Girls State), Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine turn their attention back in time with a largely retrospective documentary about the astonishing accomplishments of high school students in dogged pursuit of answers and in exposing corruption in the face of mainstream media and political indifference. It’s a remarkable story and testament to the power of what can happen when teachers are willing to enable students to soar, but I found myself wishing that more of the footage had focused on the aftermath of their investigations or how their time in the classrooms shaped the course of these students’ lives. The end titles make it clear that there was plenty more story to tell.

Middletown played an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is available for additional screenings in-person throughout the festival.

Opus (dir, Mark Anthony Green)

There are no shortage of fun ingredients in A24’s comedy-horror spin on Glass Onion meets The Menu, but it never feels fully baked. The story follows the world’s most famous pop star coming out of seclusion to release a hotly-anticipated new album. He showcases it — at his secluded sprawling cultish complex — to a handpicked selection of esteemed music journalists (Murray Bartlett, Juliette Lewis), a former collaborator, a paparazzi, an influencer, and, inexplicably, an up-and-coming writer played by Ayo Edebiri (doing Ayo Edebiri things). As the flamboyant star at the center, John Malkovich flaunts dozens of absurd costume changes and creates a self-absorbed character who speaks in an entirely unsettling cadence. The pacing is a mess, the structure is derivative, and the setup is so familiar that none of the scares feel even mildly shocking. Amazingly, the most convincing element is the music John Malkovich himself performs as the reclusive cult-king, probably because they’re written/produced by Nile Rogers and The Game. For a minute here and there, you can vaguely believe that he’d be a star.

Opus played as an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has additional screenings in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the festival.

Rabbit Trap (dir, Bryn Chainey)

Set in 1976, this story of an avant garde composer and her field-recordist husband warns of the mossy horrors that can be awakened by making sensual electronic music from the sounds of the the remote Welsh countryside. From their cozy cottage whose basement is stacked with classic analog recording, Bryn Chainey’s folklore inspired slow-boiling creeper pits a soulful Dev Patel and witchy Rosy McEwen against an emotionally needy emissary from beyond the faerie veil. For much of its runtime, the woodsy melancholycore builds its mood from impeccable sound design, spare glimpses at nightmares, and patient observation of the natural world, which makes the third act’s swerve into literal horror tropes a bit jarring and not entirely successful.

Rabbit Trap played as an official selection of the Midnights program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has additional screenings in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the festival.

Sunfish and Other Stories on Green Lake (dir, Sierra Falconer)

Sierra Falconer’s collection of astute observations linked by geography tricked me into watching short films at Sundance. A sweetly specific anthology of wistful stories of new skills, painful mastery, breaking free, or desperately seeking something bigger than yourself. Set on a Northern Michigan lake, a twilight euchre scene brought a tear to my eye.

Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) played as an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition Program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has additional screenings in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the festival and is also available online for the public (January 30–February 2)

Together (dir, Michael Shanks)

In Together, perplexingly poor decisions regarding hiking and camping in a creepy cave drastically transform a couple’s stagnating relationship. Benefitting from Alison Brie and Dave Franco’s real-life dynamics, the ensuing body horrors are a winning combination of hilarious and skin-crawling. An incredibly fun Sundance midnighter that should find a buyer soon!

Together played as an official selection of the Midnights program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has additional screenings in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the festival.