- SXSW 2026: Adam’s Apple, The Dads, Your Attention Please (March 14, 2026)
Despite being in one of the most conservative states in the country, the SXSW Film Festival has long-reflected a more progressive viewpoint through its documentary programming. It’s an interesting blend of docs at SXSW that can often be divided into three categories: quirky tales, pop culture stories, and movies with a message. This dispatch profiles three of the last category: Two character profiles that are also about trans acceptance and a piece about how the digital era is warping evolution.
Amy Jenkins’ “Adam’s Apple,” the best doc I’ve seen at this year’s SXSW, might be dismissed as little more than someone else’s home movies. This would be wrong. Not only is the assemblage of years of Jenkins’ personal filmmaking of her son Adam’s journey remarkably edited, but there’s a vulnerability here that shouldn’t be diminished by presuming this kind of display is remotely easy.
A deeply moving story of a family, “Adam’s Apple” is both a narrative of empowerment and one of ordinary parent-child dynamics. In many ways, it’s the latter that makes the former that much more powerful in that, yes, this is a story of a young man transitioning genders, but it’s also one of more universal issues of coming into adulthood like picking a college, dating someone new, and even your first car crash. It is an excellent piece of work that connects both as a story of supportive allyship through the eyes of a mother who just happens to be a filmmaker and as a reminder that trans kids go through many of the same road markers as cis ones.
“Adam’s Apple” is the story of a teenager becoming a trans man. Over eight years, Jenkins filmed her son Adam through ordinary and extraordinary moments, including hormone replacement therapy, an official name change, and surgeries. Adam Jenkins is a fascinating subject, someone who Amy is careful not to witness from afar but make part of the filmmaking journey, too. He often holds the camera and seems more like a collaborator than a subject. It’s not surprising to learn at the end that he’s majoring in Creative Writing.
Both Amy and Adam are careful not to turn his story into a scripted message movie, focusing on the reality of these formative years more than anything else. The result is a film that never sensationalizes the journey of a trans teenager, allowing Adam to serve as a role model just by being who he is. He’s also so remarkably eloquent. In one of the film’s most casually powerful moments, Adam’s father tries to thread a needle by noting how he’s happy to know Adam but misses the daughter he used to have. Adam points out that he still has the same child he always did and says, “I don’t want to be seen as a lost daughter.” It’s a simple yet remarkably insightful statement. The film is full of them.
“Adam’s Apple” also becomes a document of parenthood and growth that’s often not about being young and trans as much as it is the universal blend of pride and grief that comes with saying goodbye to a child. It may have hit me harder as someone with a son currently applying for colleges, but I think anyone could find truth in this emotionally raw piece of work as a reminder that we shouldn’t “other” trans kids not just in sports but in every walk of young life. Jenkins has a line early in the film as she’s filming a caterpillar develop a chrysalis: “I love watching time unfold.” Time is both a blessing and a curse to parents. “Adam’s Apple” is a reminder to embrace both.
A more in-your-face approach to trans issues works well for Luchina Fisher’s “The Dads,” an expansion of her Emmy-winning Netflix short of the same name (to a work that’s still remarkably brief at 72 minutes). While making a film about a group for dads of trans children, Trump 2.0 was inflicted on the world, changing the temperature of the project entirely. What clearly started as a project designed just to listen to men talk about overcoming their own biases to support their trans children became a document of a country moving backward.
These men end up not just having to vocally support their kids but fight for them in courts, and some of them even end up leaving the country because of their fear over what it means to be trans in the United States in the 2020s. It makes for a film that sometimes feels like it’s trying to tell too many stories in its very brief runtime, but it’s still a passionate reminder that it’s increasingly difficult out there to be trans, or even just to be someone who loves a trans person.
Subjects in “The Dads” include men like Stephen Chukumba, a widowed father of four whose trans son Hobbes is heading off to college, and Ed Diaz, a Texan father of a younger trans child who faces the tough decision of fleeing the country to protect them. These men are vulnerable and honest in front of Fisher’s camera, telling their stories but also revealing their fears as the world changes radically in November 2024.
Once again, we hear stories of the prosecution of trans people in this country, but films like “The Dads” put human faces on statistics, legal rulings, and headlines. Again, it sometimes feels like it’s trying to do too much in 70 minutes; there’s a version that really spends time at the Dads Retreat in June 2024, which this movie feels like it rushes through to get to the election a few months later. Seeing the men and their children speak in June 2024 about their hope for the future when the Democrats are re-elected to the White House has a bitter poignancy. What could have been.
Finally, there’s Sara Robin’s “Your Attention Please,” another documentary about people trying to protect our children in a world where their safety seems like an increasingly lowered priority every day. As a parent of three teenagers who has had to navigate the impact of social media, there are issues raised by Robin’s film that need to be a greater part of the national conversation.
As a film, Robin makes some frustrating choices like losing focus, repeating talking points, and cherry-picking ways to reflect social media or nostalgia for a time that never really existed—body image issues weren’t invented by the internet; amplified to be sure, but the opening scenes of “YAP” long for a time that either didn’t really exist or still does in pieces today. The narrator speaks of a time when kids randomly met up on the weekend like everyone is sitting alone on their phones now. As a dad, I can personally attest that a lot of this isn’t as black and white as this movie wants it to be. Benefits like access for the physically or socially disabled, representation, connection, and knowledge are waved away by the panic around social media.
Having said all of that, the panic is righteous, especially that of the inspiring Kristin Bride, who advocates for legal restrictions on social media after the suicide of her son, who was cyberbullied. The truth is that there’s a generation that sadly got lost in the development of social media. Kids now are taught about the dangers of technology in a way that they should have been from the beginning; my son’s high school has stricter phone polices like one captured in the film, and it’s worked out as well as it does here. People like Bride and the groundbreaking Trisha Prahbu will make sure future generations don’t fall into the social media trap that swallowed too many of the last one. Prahbu founded a company called ReThink, which quite literally just asks teens “you sure?” when they’re about to post something cruel. Stunningly, 93% of teens delete the bullying comment. The truth is that we know the difference between right and wrong, but devices enable us to forget. That’s one of the film’s most fascinating insights.
Most of all, the testimonials from parents in “Your Attention Please” are heartbreaking. It can be so moving when it focuses on them that the frustrations I have with the filmmaking elsewhere fall away. As Vivek Murphy says in the film, “We have not had enough conversation about [the impact of social media on youth] as a society.” That’s undeniably true. And this film will help with that. And how can anyone listen to Kristin Bride and not want to cheer her on? She deserves ALL of our attention.
- SXSW 2026: The Sun Never Sets, A Safe Distance, Seahorse (March 14, 2026)
While Austin’s favorite festival is a big event for genre filmmaking, they also welcome more traditional storytelling, the kind more focused on character dynamics than hauntings or serial killers. There’s a long history of dramedy screenwriters bringing their latest projects to this festival, and one of the most interesting things about this year’s program was the reveal of a new project by Chicago indie filmmaking legend Joe Swanberg, who reunites with his most loyal collaborator, the star of his “Drinking Buddies” and “Digging for Fire,” Jake Johnson. Riffing with co-stars Dakota Fanning and Cory Michael Smith, Johnson and Swanberg have made a dramedy that might be intolerable for those uninterested in watching people try to figure out their relationship status for two hours, but its stars do a great deal to elevate some admittedly over-written dialogue. While “The Sun Never Sets” may not be my favorite Swanberg, it’s nice to have him back on the indie scene. Don’t wait so long for another one, Joe.
Fanning is charming as Wendy, the longtime girlfriend of Johnson’s Jack. He is divorced with two wonderful kids, but he has been upfront with Wendy from the beginning that he’s at a very different chapter of his life than she is. He does not want more kids; he doesn’t even want to marry again. And it’s worth noting that Wendy and Jack are different in more ways than age gap—she’s into the outdoors, even considering buying a boat; he’s an indoor child. When Wendy’s last freewheeling friend announces that she’s pregnant, Wendy brings the agita related to what feels like the end of something back to Jack, who has the dumbest idea ever: He tells Wendy to go play the field and make sure that there isn’t someone out there who fits her needs better than he does. He still loves her, but he doesn’t want her to feel trapped and resentful.
The truth is that Jack thinks Wendy will come running back, more confident in their relationship to put away a version of herself she’s not ready to discard. He didn’t plan on Wendy running into her ex, Chuck (Smith). Wendy left Chuck years ago because he wasn’t mature enough for their dynamic, but he seems to have improved with age, a truth that sends Jack spiraling. He tries becoming a hiking guy, makes demands on her, dates other people, and just coping, but nothing seems to work.
The vast majority of “The Sun Never Sets” consists of people talking about what they need and want from a relationship, sometimes in a way that doesn’t ring true. It’s one of those things where people often sound like they know what the next line is going to be and where the plot is going. However, what it lacks sometimes in dialogue, it makes up in character detail and even visuals. Swanberg shot it on 35mm in Alaska (a nod to the land of sunlight in the title), and it looks so much better than your average streaming dramedy. Most of all, Fanning and Johnson are just remarkably easy to root for, the kind of performers who can make a clunky script feel smooth through the sheer power of their likability.
A very different kind of mind game unfolds in Gloria Mercer’s effective “A Safe Distance,” a film so influenced by Patricia Highsmith’s character-driven noirs that it even directly references Deep Water, and the Ben Affleck movie made recently that adapted it. It doesn’t really come together like I hoped it would in the final act, but Mercer has a solid eye, and directs performers well, especially the charismatic Tandia Mercedes, who holds the midsection of the film together. A clearly personal film—you don’t have to read in the production notes that it was made in response to the end of “a difficult relationship” to sense that in the storytelling—it’s a tale of two women who end up empowering each other in unexpected ways, even though one is a bank robber.
Bethany Brown plays Alex, a Canadian woman who has gone on a camping trip with her slimy boyfriend Joey, the kind of guy who isn’t overtly obnoxious as much as casually selfish. You get the impression that he’s never asked what she wants for dinner, much less noticed that she doesn’t really want to go camping. When Joey actually proposes on a lookout on the trip, Alex turns him down. What does the hurt man-child do? Sneaks away in the middle of the night, leaving Alex stranded. That’s when she stumbles into the camp of Kianna (Mercedes) and Matt, a couple living off the grid, in part because the authorities are looking for them for a string of armed bank robberies.
Before you know it, Alex has joined this Bonnie and Clyde in a throuple, even becoming enticed by the allure of bank robbing, which Matt insists is a victimless crime given they’re taking from corporations with insurance to back up the loss. The problem is that Matt is a bit of a jerk, too, which might make him a third wheel soon.
Some of the material about the “freedom” of the criminal life is a bit overwritten (although that’s sometimes-intentional given Matt is a bit of a blowhard), and the final act has a a few choices and a twist that didn’t land for me, but the bulk of “A Safe Distance” works. Not only is Mercedes a magnetic performer, Mercer shoots her limited settings well, giving the film a lush, natural look. I think Patricia Highsmith would have dug it.
Finally, there’s Aisha Evelyna’s “Seahorse,” a drama with the best of intentions that falls short by not truly committing to what I believe is its intent: Humanizing the unhoused in a way that makes them more than just figures in a news story or people overlooked on the street. Evelyna also wrote and stars, which often leads to problems in indie drama as there aren’t enough voices in the mix to work together in harmony. I fully believe that Evelyna set out to do something dramatically sound, but “Seahorse” disappoints by using an unhoused character in a manner that feels more manipulative than genuine, turning him into a figure for a protagonist’s journey instead of someone who feels like they have an interiority and back story of their own.
Evelyna plays Nola, a Toronto sous chef rising in the industry enough to have a truly annoying boss. One day, while trying to get away from the jerk and taking the trash out behind her restaurant, she sees a figure from her past in the alley: her estranged father. She begins a tentative connection with the man as “Seahorse” flashes into the past to reveal some of the reasons they split in the first place. As her new relationship threatens to derail her career, she’s forced to make some tough choices about a man she thought she’d probably never see again.
Again, “Seahorse” comes from such a genuine place that it feels almost mean to come down on it, but filmmaking is about execution as much as it is intention, and I believe the former clouds the latter here. I trust that Evelyna set out to make a movie about the cruel manner in which we treat the unhoused in the U.S. and Canada through the lens of a character study, but the blunt truth is that I didn’t believe the emotion of “Seahorse” enough because the people in it all felt like ingredients in that overcooked recipe instead of three-dimensional people.
- SXSW 2026: Beyond the Duplex Planet, Cornbread Mafia, My Brother’s Killer (March 14, 2026)
Sundance has really developed a reputation for documentaries as the pipeline from festival premiere to Oscar nomination with all five nominees this year coming from premieres at last year’s Park City event. What does that leave for the other festivals? Well, SXSW has carved out a non-fiction identity that opens uncommon doors, looking at subcultures and strong personalities that don’t necessarily scream documentary subject. Two of the best from last year were “Grand Theft Hamlet” and “Secret Mall Apartment,” two films that certainly fit that model. And all three in this dispatch tell under-told stories of communities: a pop culture movement that sprung up from an elder home, a group of farmers that revolutionized the weed trade in the United States, and the queer community that rallied around the murder of one of their own.
David Greenberger made a career not just listening to an oft-unheard portion of society, the elderly, but turning their stories and dreams into art. “Beyond the Duplex Planet” doesn’t just recount Greenberger’s fascinating work but subtly turns it into a call to find art in everyday life, and to find value in listening to those who have lived it. It’s a bit more straightforward a piece of filmmaking than one would expect given it’s about an unusual chapter of art history, but it’s still effective, in part because Greenberger himself remains such an interesting interview subject.
In 1979, David Greenberger got a job in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts at Duplex Nursing Home. He loved talking to the residents there, but not in a traditional “biopic” way in which we often define the elderly by their pasts instead of their presents. He would ask them about their current passions, as well as just quirky questions to provoke unexpected responses. He would listen to their dreams, interests, and stories, turning them into a ‘zine called The Duplex Planet, which became a huge hit in that market, drawing fans like Penn Jillette (who appears in the doc), and even R.E.M., who ended up using one of the Duplex resident’s art on their Out of Time. Greenberger would do live readings of poetry by Duplex friends, and display their art, even drawing the attention of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), who brough this project into the graphic novel world.
What’s so refreshing about Greenberger’s approach, and something that’s captured well in Beth Harrington’s film, is the lack of sentimentality in his conversations. We often center the elderly in a context of life gone by or even about to end, but Greenberger doesn’t wallow in grief or mortality, presenting these people as still vital, still creative, and still wonderful. He has a truly powerful curiosity about those he meets that’s downright inspiring. My favorite line in the film is “The ordinary is how we experience a connection.” We often overemphasize the big transitions of life, when it’s really the shared ordinary—dreams, interests, needs—that ties us all together.
The story of a real-life “Dukes of Hazzard,” Drew Morris & Evan Mascagni’s “Cornbread Mafia” is the story of the largest marijuana production in the history of the United States, a group of ordinary guys who revolutionized the drug, battling authorities and even developing a hybrid form that could survive the cold conditions of the country.
The title of the film refers to what the U.S. prosecutors called the group in 1989, when they also revealed that the operation that started simply enough in the ‘70s had stretched across 10 states and employed dozens of people Morris & Mascagni’s film tells the saga of the Cornbread Mafia with a wink and a yeehaw, using animation for some of the more out-there stories like when one of the key players just happened to have a live bear in his passenger seat as his driving buddy. Some of the tone is a bit too “good ol’ boy” humorous at times, but the filmmakers smartly offer a bit of the counter with a few of the officials who chased the Cornbread Mafia across the country offering the argument that these weren’t just harmless potheads. Overall, it’s an entertaining, informative watch, even if the whimsical sense of humor could have been dialed down a few notches.
“Cornbread Mafia” allows the key players to tell their own story, most notably Joe Keith Bickett, who was one of the key figures in the organization and later became an advocate for a broken justice system that kept drug offenders behind bars even as the drug for which they were convicted was being legalized across the country. Bickett is an engaging interview subject in a manner that gives the film a foundation instead of just becoming a series of wacky anecdotes. They also spotlight Johnny Boone, one of the most famous members of the CM who went on the run after his crop was found.
There are aspects of the film “Cornbread Mafia” that feel a bit underdeveloped, but it maintains a consistent tone in a way that makes it never boring. When you learn in the closing credits that the excellent narration was done by Boyd Holbrook, and that two kings of southern-fried comedy in David Gordon Green and Danny McBride produced it, it all makes sense.
Finally, there’s Rachel Mason’s “My Brother’s Killer,” a film that has a title that makes it sound like it belongs on one of the streaming true crime factories like the ID section on HBO Max but that actually works better as a portrait of a community in crisis than as a mystery. It does get a bit repetitive and some of the interview soundbites sound a bit over-directed instead of organic, but it’s a reminder of multiple important themes to queer history, including both how protective communities form in marginalized groups, and, sadly, how violence can erupt when people aren’t allowed to be themselves.
The severed head of Bill Newton aka Billy London, a gay adult star in the ‘80s, was found in a dumpster in West Hollywood in 1990. Despite efforts by the police and community, the crime went unsolved for decades. Filmmaker Rachel Mason has a connection to the Hollywood gay community through a gay adult video store that her parents ran in the area. As AIDS took so many lives in the ‘80s, the store became a safe haven, and a place where people questioned what might have happened to Billy London, and if his killer walked among them or if it was a hate crime committed by an outsider. Mason began production of “My Brother’s Killer” before the crime was solved but ended up playing a role in its harrowing conclusion, the revelation of a killer who walked in the same circles as London despite hating his true self enough to lash out violently because of it.
“My Brother’s Killer” often struggles with over-direction, but it undeniably tells a powerful story that still resonates today. As attacks on the queer community have risen under Trump 2.0, Mason’s film is a vital reminder of not just the importance of allies like Mason’s parents (and the role she played in solving this heartbreaking case) but in the strength of marginalized groups to unite against pure evil.
- In Taylor Sheridan’s “The Madison,” Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell Weather an Urban-Rural Romance (March 13, 2026)
Even when you close your eyes, you can feel the difference between the two worlds in “The Madison.”
When Michelle Pfeiffer’s Stacy Clyburn returns to New York City after spending a week in Montana, even after she closes the door to her massive and meticulously appointed townhouse, the steadily invasive sounds of the city bleed through. Traffic, sirens, noise. Contrast that with the family’s isolated spread in Big Sky Country, where the ambience is all about the coffee percolating, the rippling waters, the winds swirling outside, and the creatures rustling in the distance.
It’s Madison Avenue vs. the Madison River—and seeing as how Taylor Sheridan (of “Yellowstone” and “Landman” and everything else fame) is the creator of this six-part Paramount+ series, you know the deck is going to be heavily stacked in favor of the neo-Western way of life. Most of the denizens of New York City are depicted as shallow, neurotic, espresso-martini-sipping narcissists, whereas the good folks in small-town Montana are family-oriented, horse-riding, beer-drinking, nature-loving good neighbors who wince when you cuss, give you a ride if you’re stranded—and send over a cooler filled with homemade dishes because your family is in crisis and isn’t equipped to go shopping or cooking right now.
Michelle Pfeiffer as Stacy Clyburn in episode 2, season 1 of the Paramount+ series The Madison. Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
As for the Clyburn clan at the center of this warm-hearted, sun-dappled, confidently paced drama—they’re a complicated bunch, and their lives are messy, and they’ve been rocked to the core by a devastating tragedy. In other words, they’re a family. This is Sheridan’s quietest, most dialogue-driven work to date, worlds away from the violence and body count in series such as “Yellowstone” and “Tulsa King.” Only a few punches are thrown—and in each case, it’s women who are hauling off and clocking someone. Still, “The Madison” packs a powerful emotional wallop, with Pfeiffer in particular having to carry the heaviest load—and reminding us why she’s been one of the best all these years.
Some 37 years after Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell starred (along with Mel Gibson) in Robert Towne’s brilliant and unfairly forgotten L.A. noir “Tequila Sunrise,” the pair are reunited as Stacy and Preston Clyburn, who have been married for nearly four decades but are still deeply, hopelessly in love with one another. There’s genuine throwback movie-star power in what they bring to their roles, and it’s a rare and wonderful thing to see a series centered on an older couple whose love affair burns bright.
Preston has built a fortune via some vaguely defined financial empire, and he and Stacy have raised their family in the city. But he periodically heads west to Montana to spend time with his brother Paul (an excellent Matthew Fox), who escaped the rat race 20 years ago and has been living in one of the two cabins he and Preston built on an idyllic patch of land near the Madison River in southwest Montana. For a few precious days every now and again, Preston and Paul spend time fly-fishing for trout, sipping whiskey, soaking in the scenery, and closing out the night on the porch, talking about the relentlessness of one’s life clock. Despite Preston’s repeated invitations, Stacy, a self-described “city mouse,” has zero interest in spending time in a place where the bathroom is an outhouse—but she and Preston still connect every day and night on the phone, and it’s a testament to Sheridan’s writing and the subtle skills of Russell and Pfeiffer that the love story shines through even when Preston and Stacy are 2,000 miles apart.
Kurt Russell as Preston Clyburn in episode 2, season 1 of the Paramount+ series The Madison. Photo Credit: Emerson Miller/Paramount+
The Clyburns have never denied their two daughters anything, but that hasn’t always been the best for the girls. Abby (Beau Garrett) is a recently divorced mother of two with no direction in life and a heavy chip on her shoulder, while Paige (Elle Chapman) is 26, married, and works at an event-planning public relations firm, but she often acts like a petulant teenager. (Abby’s daughters are the teenage Bridget, well played by Amiah Miller, and an obligatory precocious 11-year-old named Macy, played by the adorable Alaina Pollock.)
After a seismic family event, the Clyburns have to spend some time at the Montana property, which none of them save Preston, has ever visited before. Cue the predictable sight gags about snakes and a hornet’s nest and bear spray, with Paige’s hapless but caring husband Russell (Patrick J. Adams) often caught in comedic situations, usually while wearing his pajamas. Kevin Zegers adds down-home charm as the Clyburns’ neighbor in Montana, Cade Harris, while Ben Schnetzer gives an aw-shucks, smoke-show performance as Van Davis, a handsome and kindly sheriff’s deputy who was widowed a few years back.
With Christina Alexander Voros directing and also handling cinematography, “The Madison” is filled with spectacular, autumnal visuals in the Montana sequences. Every sunrise and sunset is an opportunity, and Voros never misses. (The New York City sequences were actually filmed in Dallas and Fort Worth, meaning we get cookie-cutter establishing skyline shots of Manhattan—and lots of closeups and medium shots of characters getting in and out of cars, entering buildings, hailing cabs. It’s not particularly effective.)
Season 1 of “The Madison” ends with things really just beginning—and Russell has confirmed Season 2 was filmed back-to-back with Season 1, so there’s more to come. Like just about everything Taylor Sheridan touches, it will likely go on for as long as Sheridan and the outstanding ensemble are ready, able, and willing. It’s rock-solid, gripping television with multi-generational appeal.
All six episodes of “The Madison” were screened for review.
- We Broke the Loop: Ian Tuason and Nina Kiri on “undertone” (March 12, 2026)
Do we want the prayers of a faith we no longer trust in? How do we fight the demons of a faith we’ve left behind? These are the latent questions that soon take center stage for Evy (Nina Kiri), who is caring for her comatose mother (Michèle Duquet) in director Ian Tuason’s audio horror gem, “undertone.”
That Tuason filmed “undertone” in the same house where he cared for his own ailing parents adds more paranormal significance. One of the many bone-chilling terrors of director Ian Tuason’s film is the way it makes miracles perturbing. The hope is that, against the odds, Evy’s comatose mother arises from her slumber, but we’re also terrified at the possibility of her awakening.
Tormented by guilt that she didn’t take her faith as seriously as her mother might have liked, to take her mind off things, Evy records a paranormal podcast with her friend, Justin (Kris Holden-Ried). Fittingly, she acts as the in-house skeptic in contrast to Justin, who pokes fun at her doubt and invites her to consider how the divine might manifest in something as innocuous as an MP3 file. When Justin plays a series of ten recordings for them to listen to, Evy begins to doubt her own doubts, each recording frighteningly echoing something Evy is experiencing in her own life.
That “undertone” manages to feel grand in scope despite featuring only two on-screen actors is a testament to the film’s craftsmanship. Tuason wrote every audio cue in the script, which means that every loud bang, creaky door, or flickering light has been meticulously choreographed. Despite the film’s horrors, there’s a sentiment of reverence and love at its core: in the film’s closing moments, Tuason thanks his parents, writing:
“.. to Mom and Dad from March 2021 to October 2023, when their bodies and minds slowly surrendered to the world, to each other, and to Love itself, and in those thirty months, I learned everything I know now about peace, happiness, wisdom, service, courage and existence – truths I didn’t even know I was oblivious to in all my years before. So I simplify my dedication to Mom and Dad for transforming my faith into the knowledge of God.”
After kindly expressing adulation for RogerEbert.com’s coverage of his film, Tuason and Kiri went on a deep dive into the film’s spiritual wavelength, learning to communicate a depth of relationship through just dialogue, and making peace with the reality that we’ll always care for our loved ones imperfectly, and
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
In the film’s opening moments, the Bible passage Evy’s mother has left open is the verse where Jesus raises a girl from the dead. Before that story, Jesus healed an aging woman and cast out demons into a herd of pigs. All very on point for “undertone,” but I’m curious if opening the film on that verse was intentional?
Ian Tuason: (Laughs) Well, the Holy Spirit chose that because we randomly picked a page, and when we saw the word “child,” we thought, “Okay, let’s put her mother’s glasses on that word.” But then, now that you have mentioned it, I’m going to have to read that passage in its entirety. A demon is mentioned there, Abyzou’s a demon … it’s almost serendipitous.
That’s a common practice for me, though, where I’ll flip to a verse at random and see what it might say.
IA: It speaks directly to you, right? Are you a Christian?
I do come from a faith background, yes.
IA: Have you ever intentionally gone into the Bible to pick a verse as a form of divinity, kind of like tarot card reading?
I personally have not, but I have friends who’ve done something similar. Was that part of your preparation for the role, Nina?
Nina Kiri: (Laughs) No, but he gave me The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, which I really enjoyed reading.
IA: Remember, I also gave you that book. Well, I didn’t give it to you, but I showed you that book by Rick Rubin? I made everyone randomly choose a page and a paragraph.
NK: Oh yeah! I don’t remember my paragraph.
IA: Yours was pretty significant. It was one of the ones that surprised all of us the most. Man, I wish I remembered. I do remember, Graham Beasley, our director of Photography, picked a paragraph that–I’m paraphrasing–“If your gut feeling says ‘Don’t execute.’ Then do it over and do everything again.’”
Even in pre-production, it seems that you all were mindful of the spiritual “undertone” that taps into a very particular grief: that of a parent either unsure of their child’s salvation or concerned that their child may not go to Heaven. Evy feels guilty about not taking her faith seriously while her mom was alive. Ian, I’m wondering what draws you to depicting that type of grief on-screen, and what it was like to invite someone like Nina into something so specific.
IA: You’ve made a point that I didn’t realize until now: that Momma wasn’t sure of her child’s salvation. It’s almost as if Momma was trying to save Evy. There’s that voice message that Evy keeps listening to, and I put it in there because I wanted to show why Evy feels guilty, and how Momma is almost guilt-tripping Evy for not going to church. I’m writing the sequels now, and the third film is about Momma and explores her goal of saving Evy’s soul.
NK: When I was a kid, I used to ask all the time, “Am I being good? Is what I’m doing good?” I was so obsessed with being good, and my parents aren’t religious at all, and yet that moral feeling was relatable. If they were religious, I think, similar to Evy, I’d ask myself, “Did I do enough?”
So the way I related to Evy wasn’t necessarily through the spiritual aspect, but through a desire to be good in various situations in life. Did I do this right? Did I treat this person the right way? Am I being a good person at all times? When you’re younger, you need your parents’ guidance, and I would constantly ask myself those questions. Evy is a character who’s rattled with guilt, and she’s asking herself: “Could I have been better towards my faith? Should I have taken better care of Momma?” That guilt is easy for me to access because at so many points in life I felt I wasn’t as good as I should have been, and I could have been better, even when I was just doing what I could.
IA: Did you ever find a way to resolve those feelings? Because I still catch myself wrestling.
NK: I still wrestle a lot, in particular with relationships with my family and my parents. If I don’t call enough, I think “I should have called more,” or “I should call them again or I shouldn’t have been mad at that time.” Sometimes you can go away to repair a relationship, but there’s a struggle with maintaining peace; for me, I’m always like “No, nothing can be bad. I can’t do anything that’s not positive, and that’s a weird feeling, I think to have so often.”
THE UNDERTONE – Feature Film.
February, 2025.
Photo by Dustin Rabin #2935
I’m thinking of when Evy says, “I just want it to be over,” saying the quiet part out loud that she hopes for her mother to pass. Speaking of emotions that may be vocalized or not, I’m struck by the dynamic between Evy and Justin, and we only get a bit of their non-podcast-related banter, but I couldn’t help but speculate if there was a romantic attraction.
IA: I didn’t write that into the script, but then when Nina, Adam, and I were workshopping, we discussed a what-if scenario where there was an unrequited romance back in college. Adam played it that way, and you can hear it in his tenderness. You can also hear in Nina that she’s the one who may have rejected him because she’s the one calling the shots in their relationship. That’s something I’m playing with exploring in sequels. I think their relationship exists on its own to show how much Justin cares about Nina.
NK: There is no explicit conversation about their relationship. It is realistic to me that someone you went to college with who liked you, maybe it’s wrong timing, but you still stay in touch, and you know they care for you, you care for them, and there’s never any pressure or weirdness. It’s just love, because you’ve known a person for so long. I’m happy that Evy and Justin’s relationship is being perceived a certain way because, for both of them, it’s necessary. He’s genuinely trying to help her and isn’t going to let her go.
When he learns that Evy’s boyfriend, Darren, hasn’t been around much to help, I love his instinctive response of “What’s his number? I’m going to call and text him right now.” It’s those little touches that communicate so much depth.
IA: That’s one line I did write in, but when I wrote it, I figured he was just a good friend who’s on his friend’s side. The friend is always on the friend’s side against the friend’s significant other. But it gives him more motivation now that Adam and Nina have agreed on this backstory of unrequited love for their characters.
Ian, I understand you worked with Production Designer Mercedes Coyle to transform your parents’ home into a film set. I’m curious what the process was like to invite outside collaborators into such a personal space, but then also invite your family–your nephew drew the haunting pictures we see at the film’s climax–into the film work you do?
IA: Right now, you’re channeling my favorite interviewer, Nardwuar. He’s known for his research, but it was to a point where it would creep out his interviewees. You’re not as extreme as him because then you would have known my first-grade teacher’s name …
(Laughs) That was my follow-up question, actually. I do know one reason why Nina was due to another serendipitous moment: when you brought your mom to the hospital, she was wearing just one piece of jewelry, a pinky ring. Then, when you first met Nina, she was wearing just a pinky ring.
NK: Well, guess what happened last night? The pinky ring broke.
IA: We broke the loop. Now we’re entering another chapter. To answer your question, someone asked me at a Q&A how I felt about still living in the house. I was the one who answered about how my relationship with my house went through so many different phases. Right now, it’s just a new phase. It doesn’t mean “undertone” house. It means so many other things. Nina’s holding room was my childhood bedroom. Although we don’t see Justin on-screen, Adam was in my high school bedroom. I’ve had different memories for different rooms. I see Justin’s character as the college version of me; I was just in that room all the time. Then, where Nina was in my childhood bedroom, that’s where I was daydreaming, playing, and writing.
Was your nephew informed that his pictures would be used in such a scary film?
IA: I was going to use his actual drawings, but a higher power prevented that. We had a props meeting a day before shooting. I had put all of his drawings in a box. I placed it somewhere in the basement where I knew I could find it. So five minutes before our props meeting, I went down to get it, and I couldn’t find it. So I was searching for about a good ten minutes, and then I went back upstairs, and I said, “I can’t find it. Forget it. Just you guys can do your suggestion of getting another kid to draw it.”
After that meeting, I went downstairs and found it in the same spot where I had originally left it. I took that as a sign that my mom didn’t want to use her gifts from her grandchildren as props in a horror movie.
NK: Zach, it seems that you’ve had your own fights with demons.
(Laughs) My grandma is a prayer warrior, and I know that she prays so much for my younger brother and me. My father has said that when she passes, I’m losing someone who is praying for me. Your film made me wonder what she might be holding back due to her prayers.
IA: I would take that literally because my life went downhill when my mom passed, and she’s the one who prayed for me hard every single day. My life and my brother’s life started spiraling.
NK: A mother’s love … you were once in her body, and the bond between mother and child is flesh and flesh. You were her. It’s such an intense relationship in our lives, whether you look at it through a religious lens or not. Sometimes I feel like moms love us so much we almost can’t handle it. There’s something we feel overwhelmed by, because how could we not?
“undertone” opens in theaters on March 13th from A24.
