This Canadian feature by Ally Pankiw is funny, moving, and a great vehicle for Rachel Sennott’s particular style of flinty, self deprecating comedy.

Pankiw is better known as a TV director (Feel Good (2020)). She shows she knows how to build a compelling long form story that manages to be funny, relevant, and humanistic in its portrayal of a difficult topic.

Sam (Sennott) is a successful stand-up comedian but is unable to function after an unspecified trauma. Through flashback, we see the genesis of her friendship with 12-year-old Brooke (Olga Petsa), first as an au pair employed by dad Cameron (Jason Jones) to help while Brooke’s mother is ill, then as a support through her grief. It is this that leads to the trauma and the fracturing of their friendship is one of the many fallouts for Sam.

Like with Drift (2023), the story is structured around hiding information from us, then slowly revealing it through flashback. It’s effective, if a bit conventional, and it allows us to spend time with Sam’s life, including her awesome and very understanding housemates Paige (Sabrina Jalees) and Philip (Caleb Hearon) and her genuinely decent ex-boyfriend, Noah (Ennis Esmer who you might remember from Schitt’s Creek).

The nature of the trauma is not really a surprise, and for a while I was impressed that it looked like Pankiw was not going to show it. She eventually takes us to the brink of it, which perhaps wasn’t needed – I hope it wasn’t just to be sure the audience knows Sam is telling the truth.

Sam is genuinely funny, and Pankiw is adept at keeping the laughs light whilst not undermining the seriousness of the subject matter. Sam is brought alive by Sennott and you can see her flaws as well as her resilience.

It’s a nice resolution – perhaps a bit neat, but it’s exactly what we want.

Director: Ally Pankiw
Origin: Canada (2023)
Language: English
Genre: Comedy, Drama

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