This is the first of the Tribeca 2025 features that I fell in love with. It’s the first film that I emailed everyone I knew to say to cover it. It’s one of the best of the festival and one of the best of 2025.
The most basic telling of the plot has a feral girl found in the woods making a winding way back to civilization. Told in a prolog and several chapters the film does not go or do what you think and as such I am not going to give you any clues. I say that because one of the joys of the film is watching the shifts from part to part. When I started the film after reading what it was about I thought, wrongly, that the write up was not the film. There is a problem with some Tribeca films in that the films shift between being accepted and screening so the synopsis end up wrong. This time out it was right on target... but incredibly, and intentionally, lacking in detail.
This is director David Verbeek‘s best film. I’ve seen several of his earlier film and while I liked them there was always a point where he lost control and the films didn’t stick the landing. Here the film sticks the landing largely because the division of the tale into parts allows for narrative breaks. Actually the structure demands them.
The images are arresting and the soundtrack nigh on perfect. Watching the film I got lost in the sound and image to the point where I didn’t realize that some one had come up next to me to ask a question.
The crown jewel of the film is Jessica Reynolds as One/Alice the feral girl. This is a performance for the ages and assuming it gets backing odds are she is going to be an Oscar favorite. Seriously she is that good.
This film is magnificent. I cannot and dare not say more than that because I am somewhere beyond words, even after seeing this multiple times. Just see it and be rocked.
It is unlike anything else at Tribeca or that I’ve seen this far in 2025 and as such it is highly recommended.
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