Four Sundance 2025 Reviews: Omaha, Twinless, Sorry, Baby, Didn’t Die

A mixed bag of movies, a few that have been getting rave reviews and awards

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival ended over the weekend. While I couldn’t attend in person, the festival continues to graciously offer film critics and journalists a chance to see some of the movies on their virtual platform. Unfortunately, that doesn’t start until the 2nd Wednesday of the festival after everything has already premiered, putting those who cover virtually at a major disadvantage, but honestly, I haven’t been able to afford to go to Sundance for years without a boss/benefactor willing to pay my way, so this is the best I can manage. I’ve already written a bunch of reviews for Cinema Daily US with more to come, but I had four orphaned reviews, so I’m sharing them here.

One of these movies (Twinless) I was fortunate enough to watch before it got pulled from the platform due to the piracy, although that movie also might get released fairly soon, having come into Sundance with distribution. The third movie (Sorry, Baby) was acquired for distribution just a few short days ago, and the first of the movies will probably find distribution soon.

OMAHA

Directed by Cole Webley

My first Sundance watch was this film directed by Cole Webley from a screenplay by Robert Machoian, in which a father, played by John Magaro – returning to Sundance two years after his unforgettable performance in Celine Song’s Oscar-nominated Past Lives – wakes up his 9-year-old daughter Ella (Molly Belle Wright) and her younger brother Charlie (Wyatt Solis), to take them on a road trip with their dog, Rex. We don’t know why they’re leaving or where they’re going, except their destination is somewhere in Nebraska.

Omaha is quite typical for a Sundance movie that ticks off a lot of boxes from being a family drama to being a road trip movie. Magaro gives a similarly subdued performance as he did in Past Lives and last year’s September 5, though he definitely does more dramatically in this role than either of those films, and yet, not a lot happens, as the family just goes from stop to another on their journey into the unknown. We also quickly learn that he is having serious money issues, making it hard to feed his children and keep them happy, to the point where he eventually has to give their dog to the SPCA. As expected, his children are quite upset by this.

Still, for the entire film, you are wondering why this family seems to be on the run. We do learn that the kids’ mother is dead, though we don’t learn too much about what happened to her, and much of the journey is quite mundane, other than a few moments of joy, like when he takes he takes his kids to a zoo to keep them entertained.

It isn’t until very near the end of the film before it’s revealed what is really happening here, and while it might have been foreshadowed by a previous event, it’s also quite devastating and heartbreaking. The film’s motivation is to address a Nebraska law and its repercussions that many people viewing Webley’s film might not even be aware of.

Either way, Omaha is driven by a marvelous score by Christopher Bear, the gorgeous cinematography, and undeniable performances by Magaro and his young charges. It’s pleasant enough, if not mostly predicable festival fare that doesn’t seem like anything that can bring in huge audiences, since the storytelling tends to be somewhat mundane. At least, there are enough joyful moments to make it palatable before it eventually makes its point clearer.

Rating: 7/10

TWINLESS (Republic Pictures)

Directed by James Sweeney

James Sweeney wrote, directed and stars in a movie that also felt very Sundancey, but it also is something quite unique and different, maybe more in the vein of Miranda July’s eccentric indies films. I hadn’t seen either of Sweeney’s two previous movies, so I went into this fairly deaf, dumb, and blind about his work.

Dylan O’Brien plays Roman, who we meet at the funeral for his dead twin brother Rocky, and when he attends a support group for twins whose siblings have died, he meets Dennis, played by Sweeney. Dennis is gay, Roman isn’t, but his dead brother Rocky was, and the two form a quick friendship though Roman’s grief and rage keeps Dennis from revealing a major secret about himself. When Roman starts dating one of Dennis’ co-workers (Aisling Franciosi), Dennis starts feeling like their third wheel but he’s also in danger of having his secret revealed to his friend.

Twinless is NOT a comedy as much as it is a character drama with a few odd quirky moments. About 15 or 20 minutes into the movie, it delivers a major twist that completely changes the dynamic introduced in the earlier part of the film. Once Dennis’ big secret and truth is revealed, your opinion about Dennis is likely to change drastically – maybe he’ll grow on you, or maybe you’ll not like him nearly as much.

Roman isn’t just grieving, but he’s also very angry, something that blows up in a few key moments, and O’Brien’s performance is quite good, though his more dramatic moments are a little overwrought. By contrast, Sweeney has written such a terrible character for himself that it’s hard to empathize with him fully, and that’s likely to be the make or break for most people watching this movie. Another irksome thing is that Sweeney cast the wonderful Lauren Graham as Roman’s mother, but then really doesn’t give her very much to do.

Twinless gets points for being so original, but it also has so many tonal and pacing issues, it’s hard to fully get into it. Sweeney is a decent filmmaker, but he throws in too many needlessly gimmicky things like split screens that also detract from the story being told. On top of that, there’s a predictable aspect to Dennis’ relationship with Roman that makes the viewer feel like he might be falling for him, which does make the film more interesting even if it doesn’t really pay off.

This feels like another Sundance movie that might play great at the Eccles, but I had a tough time figuring out who might like or love this movie in the real world. Any potential Twinless might have is spoiled by being so tonally erratic and going to strange places that makes it hard to connect with either of the main characters.

Rating: 6/10

SORRY, BABY

Directed by Eva Victor

As with Twinless, I had never heard of Eva Victor before seeing this movie. Apparently, she’s a YouTube star known for making comedy videos during COVID. Sorry, Baby is also not a comedy, it’s far from it, and maybe it should be expected with its tagline: “Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on - for everyone around her, at least.” Of course, going into it, you might wonder what that bad thing is, as you sit through what is essentially a prologue of Victor’s Agnes and her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) making light conversation about nothing in particular, but sex is a big part of that conversation.

At this point, I’m going to have to reveal what this “bad thing” is, because it’s impossible to discuss the movie at any length without addressing the actual plot. In line with the post-#MeToo age we live in, the movie is about sexual abuse and rape, because Agnes was raped by her college thesis mentor, and has to spend the next few years dealing with that. Her recovery process begins with her describing her rape in great detail to her college roommate Lydie, but her rapist exits the picture and there are no repercussions, so we’re just watching Agnes deal with it over the next few years, mostly on her own.

Sorry, Baby is a movie that starts off quite weakly, than shifts gears so suddenly that it’s even harder to watch, but it’s also very episodic as we move forward from one year to the next. Make no mistake that Victor’s performance often overrides the surprising blandness of the material. Honestly, I’m not sure if any of this is based on reality, but it’s not anything particularly revelatory. Any earlier attempts to be cute or funny are excised by the fact that it’s a movie about rape, leading to many tough scenes, including Agnes being questioned for a jury years later and having to revisit her trauma.

We’ve seen this sort of story about sexual abuse so many times before, and it’s relatively well-written with a solid performance by Victor. Yes, getting raped is VERY bad, horrible even, and yes, one can easily understand why it’s affected Agnes in this way, but the film is dull and erratic, and it feels like something we’ve seen so many times before. Over the course of the film, we watch Agnes interacting and having a sexual relationship with her neighbor, played by Lucas Hedges. One of the best scenes in the movie has John Caroll Lynch playing a friendly stranger Agnes meets and with whom she shares a sandwich. As strong as those scenes are, Gladys eventually reconnects with Lydie, who happens to be a black lesbian (fulfilling Sundance’s unavoidable diversity initiatives), and all of that goes out to window, as Victor ends the film by giving a monologue to Lydie’s baby. Why does the movie end this way? Who knows?

Kudos to Victor for writing herself a vehicle that can play up to her strengths as an actor, but what’s the point of all that stuff at the beginning if it’s just going to blindside the viewer with what the movie is actually about? Why are these other characters introduced just for Gladys to vent to? Sorry, Baby reminded me of Gillian Robespierre’s 2014 film Obvious Child, starring Jenny Slate, which everyone raved about, but I didn’t really care for. (That was also released by A24 during their early days, and sure enough, they picked up Sorry, Baby for distribution. I wish them luck with it.)

Victor may be a filmmaker and actress to watch, but starting out a heavy drama about trying to recover from rape as if it’s going to be an annoying Gen-Z comedy is not the way to garner good will from your audience. It’s hard to truly enjoy Sorry, Baby, not due to its subject matter (which is tough on its own), but because the film surrounding the incident is so erratic and all over the place, there really doesn’t seem to be much point to any of it.

Rating: 5.5/10

DIDN’T DIE

Directed by Meera Menon

The single “Midnight” movie that Sundance had on its virtual platform and one of the last films I watched was this zombie sort-of-comedy by Meera Menon (Farah Goes Bang), which revolves around Kiran Deol’s Vinita, a podcaster in a world where zombies (i.e. “biters”) have become quite pervasive. She’s just trying to survive with her brother Hari (Samrat Chakrabarti) before her estranged ex Vincent (George Basil) turns up with an orphaned baby that he found.

Mostly in black and white, Menon’s film is an obvious homage to George Romero’s zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead, to the point where it even has a character named Barbara, who even looks like the Barbara from that iconic horror film! The script, co-written by Paul Gleason, is nothing special, but the film acts as a fine showcase for the directing skills of Menon, who has mainly been directing television over the past few years with one earlier film that won her an award at the Tribeca Film Festival.

My biggest issue with the film is that it just keeps returning to Vinita doing her podcast, which is one of the dullest and most annoying podcasts I personally have ever heard. (And I listen to a lot of Brett Arnold podcasts – just kidding, buddy!) It doesn’t seem to have much to say about anything, except to inform people that (as the title implies) she didn’t die. It’s just more Millennial blather that probably felt more important to the filmmaker than it will to any one watching her movie.

As far as the zombie moments, there’s nothing particularly scary or original in terms of the kills, and the zombies are quickly forgotten for much of the film, as we instead focus on Vinita and other equally mundane characters. In some ways, Didn’t Die reminded me of Bruce McDonald’s far superior Pontypool, which focused more on a radio DJ (played by the exceptional Stephen McHattie) during a deadly pandemic, but his performance just made that film.

I don’t want to dwell on the fact that this film seems to be another Sundance movie picked more for its diversity quotient then for its actual quality, but it’s hard not to think that because it has become a running theme. Menon decided to cast two actors of Indian descent who just don’t have much personality or charisma, and that really hurts the film greatly, on top of them playing such annoying and sometimes obnoxious characters.

That said, Menon isn’t a bad filmmaker once she figures out the tone she’s going for, and the film’s ending really is quite great, even though it takes far long to get anywhere beyond being a Night of the Living Dead pastiche.

Didn’t Die is another movie that’s just okay, showing off the potential of a filmmaker who isn’t that bad and could definitely could go places, though it would have been nice if she did so with something more innovative or original.

Rating: 6/10

That’s pretty much it for my Sundance coverage. I’d give my overall Sundance experience a B or B-, more for the actual movies than the experience viewing them on the virtual platform, which – piracy aside – seems to have found its footing and hopefully will still be something done in the future, regardless of where the physical festival moves.

Now, for the brutally honest portion of this recap. I do feel like Sundance needs to find some new programmers and get out of the current mode they seem to be in – I don’t want to use the term “woke,” but I do think that there is a focus on diversity over quality these days that really is hurting the quality of the movies playing there. I’m grateful for having received press access to the virtual platform, but to expect regular people to pay $35 to watch some of these movies virtually is going to hurt the Sundance brand in the long run. Just my opinion, as someone who has attended and enjoyed the festival in person many times while I could afford it and keep thinking that it just might not be worth covering anymore unless there are some major changes.