by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

The Chicago Critics Film Festival ended as of last night and had a delightful and varied lineup of films. Here are some that will be worth looking out for when they release more broadly.

Dandelion (dir. Nicole Riegel)

Dandelion (KiKi Layne) is a singer-songwriter stuck in her hometown of Cincinnati. She cares for her acerbic mother’s healthcare issues and plays gigs in local hotel bars. But after her latest disappointment, she decides to make another run at the spotlight, chasing her dreams across the midwest to a battle of the bands at South Dakota Biker Week. As a young Black woman, Dandelion stands out in this environment in a very obvious way. However, she finds other musicians to commune with and forges a connection with a Scottish songwriter, Casey (Thomas Doherty). The two begin collaborating and building a romance together. Dandelion rebuilds her confidence and passion, all while connecting with Casey and the natural environment around them. 

While clearly recalling A Star is Born in some of its narrative arcs, Dandelion makes its own path forward. Nicole Riegel’s direction excels at finding the quiet moments between moments, the fleeting happenings that become indelible memories later. The impressions left by the film’s imagery are as powerful as any of the dialogue. Riding on a motorcycle on winding mountain roads, the sound of the wind at the top of a fire tower, or the crackle of campfire are as essential to the film as the music that is a central focus. This gives Dandelion a deep sense of time and place, allowing the two leads’ romance to fill the natural spaces and evoke the feeling that they are the only two people in the world. The performances are just as important to this movie, and KiKi Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk, The Old Guard) once again stuns with incredible star power. She brings a vulnerability and softness to Dandelion that does nothing to diminish the character’s drive and passion, showing how many sides to her reside just under the surface. Layne is mesmerizing whenever she is on screen, and pushes the film beyond the familiar elements of the screenplay. 

Equally important is the music by Aaron and Bryce Dressner. Fans of Aaron Dressner’s work may find the film’s central song “The Ghosts of Cincinnati” familiar, as it was released on How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last, the 2021 album for Dressner’s Big Red Machine project (there is an alternate universe where the song ended up on one of Taylor Swift’s folk albums). The song was inspired by this screenplay, and KiKi Layne brings the full loop to a close, offering her own heartfelt and haunting version of the track. The quality of the film’s music and the passion with which Layne performs it adds to the film’s overall power. Dandelion is a comforting and heartfelt ode to the passion to create.

Dandelion to be released by IFC on July 12.

What You Wish For (dir. Nicholas Tomnay)

Most of the “eat the rich” cinema being made in the last few years has left me mostly feeling numb. With the exception of Glass Onion, which makes the monied class look so silly and absurd that you can’t help but want to wrest power from them, most of them feel like they are pulling punches or trying to make broader points that just don’t have enough bite to be effective. What You Wish For, however, feels leaner and meaner for the way it shows how the upper classes draw those of us trying to scrape together a living into being complicit with their exploitation. 

The film follows a chef, Ryan (Nick Stahl), to Latin America, meeting his best friend from culinary school, Jack (Brian Groh) to catch up. Jack fills him in on the unique kind of work he does as a chef for an exclusive list of wealthy clients, and Ryan is entranced by the dollar signs dangling in front of him. When the opportunity arises, Ryan decides to step in for Jack and gets pulled into a conspiracy. He slowly starts to understand the scope of what he has been pulled into and must find a way back out before it is too late. 

While What You Wish For luxuriates in its setup, the film shines in its back half, once all of the pieces are in place. A dinner party filled with the most noxious dregs of the wealthy class and a detective who can’t help but follow his nose becomes the setting for a tense–and often darky funny–game of cat and mouse. What You Wish For never shies away from its message and allows us to revel in our disgust long enough to make it a satisfying meal. 

What You With For to be released by Magnet on May 31.

Gasoline Rainbow (dirs. Turner Ross, Bill Ross IV)

When Gasoline Rainbow started, I immediately flashed back to Cusp, a documentary about three teenage girls in a Texas military town that played Sundance in 2021. Both films endeavor to show an unvarnished look at small town teens from the current generation but thankfully diverge in scope and tone. Cusp dances with the darkness of being young and a girl, while Gasoline Rainbow celebrates the feeling of needing to look beyond your hometown. 

The cast of Gasoline Rainbow shines, and all of these young actors are given the room to create both their individual characters as well as the family feeling they have formed with each other. Their mission of driving from the high desert of eastern Oregon to the Pacific coast is presented as their one last chance to have an adventure before they need to grow up and figure out their lives. But as the film unfolds, it feels more like this journey is helping them figure themselves out. Along the way, they meet a number of adults who also exist on the fringes, fellow outcasts due to identity, lifestyle, or economic factors (or some combination of the three), who offer them advice on their future. That advice all boils down to encouraging these kids to not follow the paths laid out for them but to forge their own way forward. Gasoline Rainbow captures Gen Z’s apocalyptic outlook but offers a hopeful angle to it. These kids may believe that the only real future is The End of the World, but they seem prepared to take care of each other and make the best of it while the world burns around them.

Gasoline Rainbow opens in theaters today, from MUBI.

Good One (dir. India Donaldson)

Good One arrives from writer-director India Donaldson as a fully-formed debut feature film. Evoking other indies set in the great outdoors, Good One follows Sam (Lily Collias), her father Chris(James Le Gros), and his friend Matt (Danny McCarthy) on a multiday hike in upstate New York. Matt’s son was supposed to join them, but Matt’s divorce has strained their relationship, reducing their group to a trio. Sam is also a child of divorce, but Chris has moved on and remarried, giving Sam a younger sibling. As the three of them head into the woods, they fall into what feels like an established dynamic. Chris is a bit of a high-strung hardass, Matt is a bit of a class clown who seems like he has never been hiking before, and Sam is self-reliant and sometimes a third wheel. Over the course of the trip, the dynamics between the three characters unfurl and truths are revealed, which leads to discomfort and some harsh reminders for Sam. 

The biggest standout of Good One is Lily Collias in her film debut. For a young and not experienced actor, she brings Sam to life with the full force of nuanced teen girl emotions. Her feelings about everything are a bit complicated, but she clearly has an empathetic nature, reminding the two fathers to think about things from any perspective other than their own. Collias spends as much as time listening as she does talking (something the middle age men could also stand to learn), and Donaldson smartly keeps the focus on Sam as much as possible, as her reactions to the conversations around her tell half the film’s story in the gaps between what is said and left silent. As things boil over, the combination of suspense, release, and gaps in communication come to the fore, and Donaldson shows us how one small moment can create a lasting impact. 

Good One can proudly stand alongside the adult male friendships of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and the father-daughter dynamics of Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace as another hiking movie that pieces together a layered emotionality through conversations and time away from the cacophony of urban life. All three films are fantastic, and I expect Good One to stick with me as much as Old Joy and Leave No Trace have, showing there is so much room in this microgenre for compelling relationship stories in among the green and quiet of nature. 

Good One to be released by Metrograph on August 9.