Phillip Sevy

Hal & Harper continues to highlight Cooper Raiff’s incredible talent

Cooper Raiff, writer/director behind Sundance 2022’s breakout hit Cha Cha Real Smooth, returned this year with his follow up. Occupying a similar dramedy space, Hal & Harper is about two grown children and their father (played by the brilliant Lili Reinhart, Cooper Raiff and Mark Ruffalo, respectively) working to confront, exhume and process the tragedy and trauma that has marred their lives, relationships and attachment styles. Like Cha Cha Real Smooth, the story is charming, funny, heartbreaking and emotional. The characters shine and take the lead in the 8-episode season. 

Intrigued by the idea of adults playing kids in situations, surrounded by other children (for example, 28-year-old Raiff playing a 6-year-old first grader, surrounded by 6 year-old actors), Raiff began writing scenes about two siblings navigating childhood after the success of his last feature. After a while, he said he had a stack of scenes that gave him the fodder for this TV show. Independently produced, he wrote and directed all eight episodes (and said it was very hard on him and everyone involved, nearly “killing” them). 

The show is centered around the tragedy of Hal and Harper’s mother leaving when they were small children—an event that shattered their family dynamics and altered their lives forever. In flashbacks up to this moment, chronologically, Hal and Harper are played by child actors. After that event, the child versions of the siblings are played by Raiff and Reinhart. It’s a poignant and powerful image, communicating the way in which they had to grow up too fast and be the adults in their family after losing their mother. Feeling strange and alienated as children, Hal and Harper became each others’ best friends—a dynamic that still stands as adults. 

In the present, Hal is getting ready to graduate from college while Harper is working in her field, considering marriage and children with her long-time girlfriend, Jessie. But the unexamined trauma and effect of their childhood is causing strain and self-destruction on all fronts. Hal can’t be alone and Harper can’t make any decision that prioritizes her wants or needs first. She has to take care of everyone else, first. A role she’s been doing since she was five. 

When their father (the always superb Mark Ruffalo) reaches out to let them know that his girlfriend Kate (the underutilized yet incredible Betty Gilpin) is pregnant, the idea of bringing a child into their family of broken childhoods sets all of them on a path to confronting the demons that haunt them. 

Hal & Harper is subtle, sublime and powerful. So much of the conflict and struggle these characters face is shown to us in silent moments. The meat of the story is often what isn’t said—what hangs in silence between lines of dialogue. These are characters who have coped with tragedy by not talking about it, so their inability to talk about anything shows up in every scene. 

Early on in the series, Harper tells Hal, “I’m not a good person. You’re not either.” And this current of self destruction spurred by abandonment and a lack of safety runs through every action they take. 

The pilot and second episodes are the strongest of the series. They’re funny and painful and profound. The next six episodes could use some editing. While the overall arc of the show is fantastic, with too much time and space to meander, the story loses its thread from time to time. There were too many scenes where the characters just existed in a space so we could see how they reacted. Instead of them leading scenes, they were just observers. The space afforded to a TV show allows Raiff to expand and explore the complex character dynamics—and I’m glad he’s given that chance, but the show could benefit from editing down to a tight five episodes. But the care given and emotion communicated as it relates to codependency, attachment issues, trauma, tragedy and the love and support of friends and family is powerful and poignant. 

Lili Reinhart, who is also an executive producer on the show, is incredible. Her strength, vulnerability and charm elevate the material and make even the slower parts of the series captivating to watch. Mark Ruffalo always brings his A-game to these quiet, domestic roles. Raiff acts as a perfect counterbalance to the two strong, dramatic performances, by bringing a sense of levity and self-deprecation to the childlike Hal. And when Betty Gilpin is given something to do, she acts as the emotional center of the movie—an outsider to the family that gives them a tether to reality. 

I was absolutely blown away by Cha Cha Real Smooth, and, while Hal & Harper might not be as successful overall, it’s far more ambitious, nuanced and sublime.

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A quirky, charming throwback to no-budget, homemade indie films

At its core, OBEX is a film about a man who goes into a computer RPG in 1987 to save his dog who has been kidnapped by the demon antagonist of the game. It’s a simple, black and white, low-fi indie film about not only the importance of companionship but the need to occasionally go outside and touch grass. I’m sure there is a deeper read of the film, but part of its charm is its relative simplicity. 

When reading through descriptions of the films on the Sundance slate, I kept coming back to OBEX. The logline seemed weird and oblique and intriguing. It didn’t sound like anything else playing at the festival. And while it didn’t have the emotional gravitas or polished skill of most of the films playing, it felt like watching a film at the festival thirty years ago.

There’s discussion and discourse on the state of the modern festival in Park City. This is not the place for it, but a lot of people have questioned the mainstream nature the festival has adopted over the years. Many of the films showing already have distribution deals and/or were financed by larger studios. Films without are often snatched up in bidding wars (these days mainly from streamers desperate for content and prestige). What is shown at Sundance often has the polish and look of a major studio film. 

OBEX reminds me of a time where Sundance was home to weird, low-budget indie films like Darren Aronofsky’s Pi, or Christopher Nolan’s The Following (which was actually screened at Slamdance, at alt-alternative festival to Sundance), or Shane Caruth’s Primer. Movies made with borrowed money from parents and dentists, shot as cheaply as possible, assembled using every friend and family member and favor a filmmaker had. OBEX feels like a film a bunch of friends made in their backyards and houses over weekends for a year. 

And in that context, it’s pretty great. 

OBEX follows Conor—an isolated introvert who doesn’t associate with the outside world. It’s 1987 in Baltimore and there’s a large influx of the once-every-seventeen-years Cicada population, which represents the loud, oppressive and scary nature of the outside. Conor has his computer, his massive collection of VHS tapes and his dog Sandy. By day, he creates digital portraits of people using characters and wingdings, dot matrix printed across the page like a pixelated mosaic. He has someone named “Mary” who delivers his groceries every week. They talk through the door but never face to face. He advertises his work in a computer magazine. It’s in this very magazine that he sees an advertisement for a new computer RPG called “OBEX.” They boast that if you send in some pictures of yourself with some personal details, they will customize the gaming experience for you. 

He does this and the game he gets back is very simple and unsatisfactory. So he deletes it and moves on. But the game won’t stay deleted. The main antagonist of the game, the demon Ixaroth, comes out of his computer and steals Sandy. The only way to save her is to go into the game and come find her. And so Conor does. We transition from black and white scenes of suburban loneliness to black and white scenes of “epic” (read: some costumes and shot out in the woods) adventure. 

OBEX is shot entirely in grainy black and white with a charming synth soundtrack with a cast of only a handful of people. It has the DIY look and feel that makes you say “I could do that!” but in a way that inspires you to make a film, not in a condescending “I could do it better” way. And while the overall aesthetic is very low budget, the stakes and escalations of the characters aren’t very dramatic, and the scenes sometimes drift from idea to idea without the clearest direction, OBEX is a delightfully quirky piece of indie cinema that I’m glad exists and found its way to Sundance. It reminds me of bad Saturday afternoon cable access movies, but with more charm and care put into it than you would expect. Things like Stranger Things pull on the nostalgia of the 1980s VHS culture, but OBEX feels like a true love letter to that era, instead of a spectator sport. 

Watching OBEX made me want to make my own small indie film. And while I can’t say if that’ll happen or not, just watching something that inspires you to create is a true gift. As a movie, it’s not great. But as an experience presented to you by a group of indie filmmakers at a festival that, at its core, was about finding and promoting indie voices, it was very inspiring and exciting.

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With Rabbit Trap, Dev Patel continues his reign as the most compelling and charismatic actor working today.

One of the aspects to seeing movies at Sundance is the unknown factor. As such, when you watch a film, there’s a longer period of grace you allow the movie as it develops before it’s clear what the movie is/wants to be. Once that is clear, you’re able to navigate expectations, feelings and concepts better. This grace period can cut two ways—one, you fall more in love with a movie than you might if you knew what it was going in (the surprise of discovery hits even harder) or two, if the movie struggles to come together with any sense of direction or clarity, you’re left frustrated more so than if you knew, going in, the movie wasn’t going to work. 

As I sat through Rabbit Trap, I held on for a long time that what I was seeing would find its footing, communicate its tone and engage emotionally with the audience. Once it was clear that it wasn’t going to be able to do that, I felt that wash of frustration come over me. 

Now, that’s not to say that Rabbit Trap was bad—there’s quite a lot working for the individual pieces. The film follows a married couple (Dev Patel and Rosy McEwan) as they’ve moved to a cottage in Wales in 1976.

Darcy (Patel) captures ambient sound from nature while Daphne (McEwan) is an experimental musician/poet who has moved away from London to capture something magical for her next record. While outside, recording any audio he can find, Darcy begins to pick up eerie and haunting noises. As he follows them into the forest, he encounters a circle of white mushrooms and enters the circle. He passes out and wakes up a time later.

When he returns home, the ambient noise that he captured intoxicates both him and Daphne, and a child appears outside their home, drawn by the music. This child (played by Jade Croot, an actress in her 20s, but this isn’t an Orphan situation) doesn’t give his name, traps rabbits (hence the title of the film), and he wants to be a part of their family. His increasing insistence on being included and being present somewhat escalates as the movie progresses. However, the film struggles to establish the child as a felt threat or menace. 

The movie premiered in the Sundance Film Festival’s Midnight category—which is reserved often for horror movies, thrillers or dark comedies. It’s my favorite category because of the level of creativity, experimentation and ambition you can find there. Unfortunately, Rabbit Trap never really delivers on the scares, tension, or a mounting sense of dread. 

The main characters don’t really talk to each other, and never seem to engage or question the world around them, and, as things get more claustrophobic, the threat that they’re facing never really becomes clear. Beyond “make a good album with unique and atmospheric sound” they don’t appear to have any goals or efforts they are working toward. When a child shows up who won’t leave them be, it doesn’t disrupt much of their solitary, individual lives, in a way that causes them to take much action to reorient their efforts toward achieving their goals. 

The movie spends most of its time in what feels like the setup and initial tension—rather than escalating or complicating—until we shift wildly into a third act that, while I could follow easily, doesn’t feel congruous or satisfying with the rest of the film. 

As a metaphor for the haunting nature of trauma—especially childhood trauma—the ideas and images are very powerful. In fact, the final scene of the whole movie is so good, that you wish it were the climax to a very different, very effective drama about a couple navigating the choking, silencing pain of childhood abuse. Unfortunately, the metaphor stands next to Darcy’s story of hidden trauma and doesn’t draw it into the overall plot. 

What I was struck by and reminded of is how incredible Dev Patel is. Every scene he is in, he commands, and you can’t look away from him. His presence is never aggressive or overbearing, but his sheer watchability is undeniable. And it should come as no surprise. If you’ve ever seen him in any of his roles (notably Academy Award favorites Slumdog Millionaire or Lion), you know there is a quiet charm and intensity about his choices. The aforementioned final scene is nearly silent and yet Patel’s choices and presence and emotion on his face brought me to tears. 

The sound design in the movie is incredible—though it starts off very strong and intense and fades/is forgotten as the movie goes on. The production design and cinematography similarly are also gorgeous and well-crafted. The whole movie is a vibe. Just perhaps not a complete, functioning story. 

In talking to another reviewer after the film, they described it as what you find searching for “Millennial fairy cottage-core ambiance lo-fi video” on youtube, to play in the background while you study. And that’s not inaccurate. 

Bolstered by an incredible lead performance, a strong metaphor about trauma, captivating sound design and aesthetically pleasing design, Rabbit Trap can’t overcome its struggles to establish tone and direction, stakes or a clear narrative. 

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“A genuine and emotional story of a multi-generational queer family that celebrates the joy and challenges of navigating supporting the current generation growth while honoring the previous generation’s struggles,” reads the official synopsis of Jimpa, a film premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
Jimpa follows Hannah (Olivia Coleman), an Australian filmmaker, who is in the process of casting a film about her father, Jim (John Lithgow), and his life’s journey as a closeted gay man who marries, has two children, comes out, lives with his wife as they navigate an open marriage and supportive co-parenting until she’s 13, when he moves to Amsterdam and lives the rest of his life. Hannah’s focus of the film is to showcase how her parents navigated their complicated situation and showed kindness over conflict. It’s a film “without conflict.” 
At the same time, Hannah and her husband Harry (Daniel Henshall) are traveling to Amsterdam to visit Jim, bringing along their nonbinary child Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde). Frances loves their “Jimpa” (the name he chose for himself when Frances was born because being called “Grandpa” felt too old) and has been struggling to find community and acceptance within their small Australian town and school. Frances, who is only 16, has decided that they want to stay in Amsterdam with Jimpa and spend their last year of high school in a place that offers more adventures, excitement and acceptance. Harry doesn’t want to allow that (Frances is still a minor) and Hannah is hesitant. Jimpa, while being a dazzling force of nature, is someone who takes up all the oxygen in the room and always lets down the people around him. Hannah has been struggling with this since she was a child, though Jim is her hero and struggles to ever say anything less than praise about him. 
Jim has spent his life since coming out as an LGBTQ advocate and activist. He protested, marched and litigated for equality and acceptance. He sat at the bedsides of gay men as they died of AIDS. He has spent his life living as HIV positive. 
Frances is in awe of Jimpa and his group of gay friends. They offer a window into the past and a promise of a future of acceptance, love, and celebration. But as Frances spends time with them, Jimpa begins to mock their gender identity, question their sexuality and go on long rants against anyone who isn’t binary: gay or lesbian. Exhausted by having to constantly justify their existence, Frances turns to Hannah for support, who eschews taking a stand or making a choice. Hannah is nothing if not a complete people pleaser, always sacrificing her comfort and point of view to try and make others feel good and never have to face consequences for their actions. 
Jimpa is a complicated and complex character. He, at once, champions the rights of marginalized groups, gives of himself to everyone around him, and radiates love while also being narrow-minded about others’ experiences that don’t mirror his own, uses people around him for his own emotional needs before moving on or casting them aside, and looks for every opportunity to loudly declare his views and how right they are under the guise of “having a debate.”
In fact, we open the movie with Hannah talking about how Jimpa got his name—choosing a new name because the one society prescribed him didn’t fit—and yet he struggles, “provocatively,” to believe others can do the same when their gender, identity or name at birth don’t fit how they feel.
As the movie goes on and background conflicts simmer and begin to boil, everytime there might be a chance to confront the issues everyone is dealing with, the movie consciously decides to pivot and avoid that confrontation. Hannah is making a movie about a story without conflict, and Jimpa attempts to tell a story that acknowledges the conflict inherent in the story without ever addressing it. The choice to do so is an authorial one and makes for an interesting experience, if somewhat frustrating as it sidesteps emotional catharsis and character change. 
Jimpa is deeply personal and autobiographical. Sophie Hyde, the Director/Co-writer, based the story on her father Jim and his relationship with her and her child, Aud (who plays Frances in the film). The real Jim passed away six years ago, when Aud was just beginning to explore their identity and sexuality. So the conversations between the two, in the film, didn’t happen in real life, but by imagining what they could have been, Sophie found the story: 

“My child Aud (they/them) seeks out LGBTQIA+ elders. They look up to my dad even in his death. Just at the end of my dad’s life, my child was finding ways to articulate their own experience of sexuality and gender. They came out as queer, and then nonbinary. They began to seek out others who would understand them in ways that we might try but not always fulfill on, and they started to stand up for and support others who didn’t have families that would be open to do the same.
But what they didn’t get to do, because my dad’s death at 68 made it impossible, was discuss fully with him what it means to be LGBTQIA+, what it means to put yourself on the frontline of an ideology war that is arguing about your very right to be, to self-identify, to take up space. They didn’t get to debate with him the changing language for identity or find out about the AIDS-crisis-years from his personal point of view. They didn’t get to share with him their feelings or hear about his. And so I imagined this conversation that they never had the chance to have.
And that conversation led to this film.”

The movie presents an interesting conversation with itself in context of its autobiographical nature. We’re watching Hannah as she’s presenting a fictionalized version of Sophie’s life and relationship with her father and child. And Hannah is incapable of taking a stand, of voicing an opinion, of pushing back against Jim’s hurtful behavior. I spent the movie wishing she would stand up against her father in defense of her child. And she never does. And yet, knowing this story is being told by someone who experienced some version of these events, it becomes a way in which the director is taking a stand, of voicing an opinion, of pushing back against Jim. 
Olivia Coleman does a masterful job of playing a character who outwardly admits to little emotion besides smiling and trying to keep everyone happy, all while exuding this simmering rage, frustration, desperation, fear, love, and desire that lives just beneath the surface of her skin. John Lithgow perfectly encapsulates Jim—someone who is charming, warm, funny, cocky, condescending, and self-absorbed at the same time. Each person contains multitudes, and our two leads do an incredible job portraying those complex and often contradictory aspects of humanity.

Aud Mason-Hyde brings a quiet serenity to the film, doing an incredible job of showing the apathy and disaffection of Gen Z while giving us a powerful sense of the suppressed emotions they’re feeling. They’re quiet and reserved and keep things close, but have a fierceness in their eyes.

I especially want to call out the character of Harry and Daniel Henshall’s performance. Harry stands as an island in the movie—a character who knows what he wants, voices an opinion, and defends his beliefs. There are several quick, little moments in the film where Jimpa misgenders Frances and Harry, from often across the room or apartment yells out “THEY!” to remind Jimpa who his child is and that his child deserves to be respected and recognized. It’s a small moment that happens a few times, but each time it made me cry and made me wonder what it would be like to have a parent who fiercely understands and defends you. 
Coming in at 130 minutes, Jimpa could use a stronger edit, tightening up the scenes and sharpening the focus between the three leads. It’s frustrating at times and even if it purposefully makes choices that mute the emotionality of the story, it’s still so personally and beautifully crafted, it left me thinking and talking about it for days.

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Read more of our ongoing Sundance coverage of the festival and enjoy all of our arts and culture coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe to our print magazine and get six copies a year of Salt Lake magazine.