Comedy also has its place on this year’s Sundance slate, including the feature-length Hot Water and three selections in the Episodic Fiction Pilot Showcase.
A boilerplate road comedy but anchored with some unique features to captivate the audience’s attention, Hot Water is a Sundance feature-length narrative debut for director and screenwriter Ramzi Bashour. Utahns also recognize some scenes filmed in San Juan County, including Goosenecks State Park, Twin Rocks Cafe and Recapture Lodge.
A Lebanese mother and her American son embark on an odyssey across the U.S. Layal is an Arabic professor with a Type A personality and her teenage son, Daniel, is expelled from his school after hitting another player after a hockey game. An exasperated Layal decides to accept the offer from his estranged father to have him live with him so he can resume his education. Because Daniel cannot rely on air travel while he is still recovering from a concussion and a collapsed lung, he and his mother take to the road from Indiana, in hopes that his father, who lives in Santa Cruz, California will meet them halfway. However, plans change and the pair end up making the drive to the destination. There are some encounters with oddballs along the way, including a hitchhiker they pick up, but because his body odor is unbearable, he is forced to leave their car. The most interesting encounter is with an eccentric friend of the father, which becomes an opportunity for mother and son to work out some of the most cantankerous aspects of their relationship. It becomes a foreshadowing pivot for how they ultimately respond to the surprise that awaits them in California and leads to unexpected decisions for mother and son.
The solid performances by Lubna Azabal as the mother and Daniel Zolghadri make viewing worthwhile in a story that could still be tightened up. Bashour, a Syrian-American filmmaker, developed the project as a Sundance Fellow from 2022 through 2024.Films Boutique has acquired international sales rights for Hot Water, with Cinetic Media handling North American sales. Bashour composed the score for the film and its improvisational feel suits the narrative tone. The frequent use of audio spotlighting phone calls between Layal and her mother and sister in Beirut is well chosen, for how it serves the epiphanies.
Episodic Fiction Pilot Showcase
Three pilot episodes for serial comedies proved definitely worthwhile to pursue for development. In FreeLance, set in Columbus, Ohio, directors Julien and Justen Turner have scaffolded several pillars that are appealing for comedic opportunities. An aspiring filmmaker with his focus on his first feature project has moved in with a group of friends, all of whom are hoping to find their own brass ring as content creators and popular social media influencers. In order to be able to afford pursuing their goals, these Gen Z creatives take on sideline gigs that test just how strong their experience levels actually are.
The directors were steeped in the DIY work ethic and founded Dreadhead Films in, surprise, Columbus, Ohio. Their work has earned them two Webbys, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and London International Awards Best New Directors honors. The overall vision here is ensemble tight, assisted by the fact that six principals behind and in front of the camera are graduates of Morehouse College.
Just as promising is Soft Boil, directed, written and produced by Alec Goldberg, in conjunction with Camille Wormser, who also plays Lulu, the lead character. Lulu is a struggling actor and decides to land a job as a nanny, a position for which she has absolutely no qualifications. Meanwhile, her relationship with her boyfriend has shattered after she discovered him in the shower with another woman. It is obvious that Lulu is not in the ideal mindset where a nanny will have consequential responsibilities in carrying for children.
In an interview with No Film School, Goldberg, whose cinematic work has been primarily in documentaries, said he crossed paths with Wormser at a film festival where both had short films in the same program block and became the basis for their collaboration. As for envisioning Lulu’s distinct speaking voice, Wormser explained how she envisioned the character as “such an anxious, strange lady, but I am an anxious, strange lady. But it’s on crack, on steroids. I have been, at times in my life, where I’ve been, my life is falling apart more so than it is now. And I think it was easy to go into, ‘What is someone whose anxiety is all over their skin, all over them, but also has a unique point of view on the world and doesn’t feel like anyone understands it?’”
The most memorable scene occurs when the mother is interviewing Lulu and it is clear that it would be a shock if Lulu actually was hired. Lulu is losing her composure and increasingly sounds more off-kilter, but as desperate needs sometimes necessitate desperate decisions, the path for some pretty hilarious comedic material has been cleared.
Worried, directed by Nicole Holofcener, signals just as bright prospects for further development. The concept is based on Worry, a 2024 biographical novel by Alexandra Tanner. Jules and Poppy are sisters in their twenties and rooming together in Brooklyn and the respective emotional family baggage they carry overshadows their sibling relationships, as well as their lives in general. Gideon Adlon and Rachel Kaly gave excellent performances as sisters in the pilot episode.
A veteran screenwriter and film director, Holofcener has directed a good volume of television, including episodes of the original run of Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, Gilmore Girls, Parks and Recreation and Orange Is the New Black.