Dylan O'Brien, Olivia Colman, Dev Patel, and Jennifer Lopez – just a few of the many stars in several of the Sundance films we can’t wait to see.
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will begin on January 23; it’s an 11-day celebration that shows at least some of the new American and international independent films. Or at least some of the newer titles. Last year’s festival had premieres of a number of notable movies-the Oscar contender A Real Pain, the critical darling I Saw the TV Glow, and the stealthy awards contender A Different Man. Is it going to be a launching pad like last year for underexposed films to find some shine? Let’s take a look at some would-be a breakout-hopefuls.
Six years ago at Sundance, I took a leap on a small Irish film-Animals-from someone named Sophie Hyde, otherwise totally unknown to me as a director. It was one of my super films at that festival that year, with fabulous writing and a trod-on performance by Holliday Grainger that last decade unjustly ignored some work. This year, she returned live to the festival (after virtually appearing with Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) with Jimpa: a funny dramedy about the family of a mother (Olivia Colman) and her non-binary teenager (the director’s own child, Aud Mason-Hyde) making their way to Amsterdam to visit the teenager’s gay grandfather played by John Lithgow. The cliché-ridden, overly sentimental family comedy premise is bad, but I get the feeling that with Hyde's propensity for zigging where others would probably zag with the familiar, he's going to spin something smart and impactful.
I mean, I’ve heard the same from other quarters but this second film of writer/director/star James Sweeney’s is said to be a breakout picture. Sweeney populates the rest of the movie with himself and another actor, Dylan O'Brien, who's been poised for a break for a while: the film is a two-hander set in a ‘bachelor support group’. Maybe this will be the “big break" that both have been “waiting” for. Sweeney’s first movie was the romantic comedy Straight Up and it had garnered some nice notices six years ago. Now I am excited to see get some maturity out these years of working. And, to see whether O'Brien can add that little extra something to his undoubted natural star quality.
Filmmaker from Norway Emillie Blichfeldt surely wrote, and directed her dark fairytale film pre-The Substance at Cannes, pre-widespread impact during the award season but this body-horror reinterpretation inevitably will draw parallels to that.’ The Ugly Step Sister is a nice twist on the tale of Cinderella, presenting it from the perspective of the titular character who goes on a grotesque journey trying to outdo her soot-sweeping sister’s beauty. This one seemed to fit quite perfectly within a particular Sundance Zeitgeist.
