Movie Reviews
‘See You When I See You’ Review: Cooper Raiff Gives a Deeply Felt Lead Turn in a Tragicomedy That’s Sad for the Wrong Reasons
After a 14-year hiatus during which he focused on directing television and acting, Jay Duplass made a welcome return to features in 2025 with The Baltimorons, a gentle May-December romance with an After Hours vibe and an unassuming charm that sneaks up on you like a surprise hug. I wish See You When I See You had a similar effect, but despite its sincerity and the raw pain of shattering real-life experience that infuses it, this feels like a knockoff struck from the template of a thousand bittersweet, funny-sad indie grief dramas branded with the old-school Sundance stamp.
Dysfunctional family whose members seem to have forgotten how to communicate? Check. Belabored metaphor that never adds up to much (in this case a sage grouse at risk of extinction)? Check. Surreally stylized flourishes that are both awkwardly realized and inorganic to the prevailing mood and style? Check. Random nostalgic nods to ‘90s bands? Check. Treasured childhood memory tarnished by soul-crushing trauma? Check. Tinkly piano score poised to underline every emotional beat? Check. The list could go on.
See You When I See You
The Bottom Line Not if I see you first.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)
Cast: Cooper Raiff, Hope Davis, Lucy Boynton, Ariela Barer, Kumail Nanjiani, Poorna Jagannathan, David Duchovny, Kaitlyn Dever
Director: Jay Duplass
Screenwriter: Adam Cayton-Holland, based on his book, Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-Comic Memoir
1 hour 42 minutes
All this is a shame since first-time screenwriter Adam Cayton-Holland, adapting his 2018 memoir Tragedy Plus Time, is clearly drawing from a very personal well in depicting with candor the spiraling chaos of a young comedy writer as he struggles to move forward after his beloved younger sister’s suicide. The authenticity of the writer-protagonist’s feelings is undermined by the banal familiarity of a specific indie-film model.
It’s doubly regrettable because Cooper Raiff pours a ton of heart and humor, along with PTSD, into the author’s stand-in, Aaron Whistler. He’s likable and funny, and even when the character is pushing people away like a flailing mess, he never forfeits the audience’s compassion.
Duplass could not have wished for better preparation for material of this nature than his work as producer and director of six episodes — including the pilot — of HBO’s sublime Bridget Everett series Somebody Somewhere. That series started from a similar place, with a central character trying to regain her footing after the shattering loss of a sibling and tending to deflect her sorrow with humor. Every single member of the ensemble felt fully lived-in and relatable, something that can be said for only some of the principal roles here.
It’s been two months since Leah (Kaitlyn Dever) took her own life and her devastated family has still not been able to agree on funeral arrangements — if they are to have one at all. The urn containing her ashes sits conspicuously on the mantlepiece in her parents’ loveless bedroom.
Leah’s mother Page (Hope Davis) has become closed-off and sour, doing her best to ignore her own grave health situation; her husband Robert (David Duchovny) pours himself into his work as a civil rights attorney, avoiding the subject of Leah; their other daughter Emily (Lucy Boynton), who has her own young son to care for, urges Aaron to see a therapist and goes from impatience to anger at the extent to which his grief has hijacked everyone else’s loss. Aaron and Leah were always members of a private club from which Emily felt excluded.
A big part of Aaron’s trauma is that he was the one who found his little sister’s body; when he is forced, after a DUI charge, to sign up for a mental health diversion program, he’s uncooperative and hostile with the therapist, who tells him nothing he didn’t already know. Later, when he finds an empathetic therapist with whom he connects (Poorna Jagannathan), Aaron initially remains blocked, only able to revisit the night he found Leah dead up to a point.
Raiff is very good in these scenes, which makes it frustrating that the memory flashes throughout of time spent with Leah are so clunky and obvious. Dever is always a compelling presence, but Leah seems more like a bundle of exposed nerve endings than a real person — the dangerous, out-of-control highs, the precipitous lows, the psych ward stints. The worst part, though, is a thuddingly literal device so poorly handled it yanks you out of the movie every time — a hole opens up in the ceiling or sky at a certain point in Aaron’s recollections, and Leah is sucked up into the atmosphere.
There are sweet interludes when Aaron reconnects with his girlfriend Camila (Ariela Barer), who is furious about him ghosting her for months until she learns the reason. Still, it’s clear to her that Aaron is not OK, causing her to pull away again.
The scenes that work less well and seem virtually superfluous are those with Kumail Nanjiani as Adeel, an environmental activist who drags Aaron along with him to break into a fracking site that is disturbing the breeding ground of…the sage grouse.
Duplass can’t be accused of lacking sensitivity as a director, and in the moments when See You When I See You works best, the movie has an infectious warmth. Until it turns into treacly cliché. The performances mostly are better than the material deserves — Raiff in particular, but also Davis and Boynton. No one enjoys beating up on a film in which the writer has invested so much of himself and his pain. But Cayton-Holland and Duplass have somehow made an authentic tragedy feel phony and unaffecting.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — In this episode of 8News Reel Talk, digital producer Julia Broberg is joined by anchor Deanna Allbrittin and reporter Allison Williams to talk about “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:
Deanna: ★★★★.5
Allison: ★★★.25
Julia: ★★
To watch more livestreams and digital video content, head to the WRIC+ Originals page. You can also watch full on-demand videos on your smart TV using the WRIC+ app.
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
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