The Sweet East

A high-school senior escapes a Washington school trip and takes her own subversive journey through underground America in this darkly comic travelogue.

Cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ feature directorial debut emulates the scuzzy vitality of his work for the Safdie brothers (Good Time) and Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell).

It’s a sly, self-conscious, state-of-the-nation address, whose bizarre tangents and impasses are expertly channelled through the nonchalant disaffection of Talia Ryder’s protagonist Lillian, a student who falls down the rabbit hole of New Weird America. Along the way she encounters actors, artists, anarchists, neo-Nazis and other sinister weirdos.

With a great supporting cast including Ayo Edebiri, Jacob Elordi, Earl Cave and Jeremy O. Harris, this is a freewheeling odyssey you're guaranteed to have fun with.

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