Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jan Komasa
Starring: Phoebe Dynevor, Dylan O'Brien, Diane Lane, Kyle
Chandler, Madeline Brewer, Zoey Deutch, Mckenna Grace, Daryl McCormack
I can't think of another 2025 movie that has squandered its potential to such a degree as Anniversary. This film has everything going for it: a cracking setup, an impressive ensemble cast, and in Jan Komasa, a rising director coming off the back of a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination for his acclaimed Polish drama Corpus Christi. But after a riveting opening it quickly collapses under the weight of its failed attempt to deliver a cinematic state of the nation address. Think The Godfather, if after the wedding scene it turned into Gotti.
The opening is indeed a cracker. It plays out at a 25th wedding anniversary party thrown for liberal elite power couple the Taylors - Ellen (Diane Lane), a Georgetown University professor, and restaurateur Paul (Kyle Chandler). The couple's insufferably good-looking and successful children have gathered for the occasion. Cynthia (Zoey Deutch) is a high-profile lawyer, as is her husband Rob (Daryl McCormack). Punky lesbian Anna (Madeline Brewer) is a popular stand-up comic. Teenager Birdie (Mckenna Grace) is a scientific prodigy. The black sheep of the family is Josh (Dylan O'Brien), a struggling writer who has never lived up to his mother's expectations.
Ellen is shocked when Josh shows up with his new girlfriend Liz (Phoebe Dynevor) in tow. Liz was once a student of Ellen's, and their clash over Liz's thesis calling for an end to American democracy and the establishment of a one-party state resulted in Liz leaving Georgetown under a cloud. Ellen expresses concern that her son is dating a "fascist," but Paul dismisses her fears (all these kids are little Mussolinis"). Liz bids farewell to Ellen with one hell of a mic drop, presenting her with a copy of her just-published book, "The Change."
Cut to a year later and The Change has swept America, selling over 10 million copies. Liz and Josh are now newly minted, and Liz's ideology has been adopted by an organisation known as "The Cumberland Corporation."
From here the film keeps moving forward one year at a time to detail how The Change becomes a political movement that eventually seizes Washington. We see how this tears apart the Taylors, but none of it feels real. The core issue is that the political movement at its centre is so poorly sketched and wildly unlikely. Rather than being rooted in far right or far left ideals, The Change is far centre. Its laughably on the nose flag is the stars and stripes, but with the stars moved into the centre of the flag. It's the stuff of Young Adult dystopian sci-fi fiction. The movie makes no effort to convince us that liberals and conservatives have set aside their differences to come together for this new movement. How did both groups find a compromise on such divisive issues as immigration, trans rights, religion etc? Perhaps the hardest idea to swallow is that of 10 million Americans buying a book in the 2020s. Liz's role in the political movement sparked by her writing is unclear. Is she now a member of the government? How much power does she actually wield? The same goes for Josh, who transforms from the unkempt slacker of the opening scene to a well-groomed Patrick Bateman clone. He appears to have become an important figure, but his role in the regime is all too vague.
The other members of the Taylor family have soap opera trajectories. Deutch plays Cynthia's descent into depression as though she based her performance off Sue Ellen from Dallas. McCormack has a scene of hysterical over-acting that will haunt his career, likewise an unintentionally hilarious scene in which Paul suffers a mental breakdown. It all ends with the sort of over-the-top set-piece that soap operas drop whenever they need to kill off a bunch of cast members in one fell swoop.
It's a shame, as there is much potential established in Anniversary's engaging opening segment. The movie's best scenes are those between Lane and Dynevor, between the Gen-X liberal and the Gen-Z fascist. Had the movie narrowed its focus to this dynamic it could have been an engrossing take on America's culture wars, a western cousin of Kirill Serebrennikov's excellent Russian drama The Student, in which a teacher clashes with a student succumbing to Christian nationalism. But Anniversary separates Lane and Dynevor for most of its running time, with Dynevor particularly short-changed. There's a hint that Liz might harbour some regrets regarding the influence her book has had on her country, that she's a Frankenstein who has created a monster she can no longer control. But this idea is never examined as the film prefers to paint Liz as a one-note villainess. Though Anniversary is an original idea by Komasa and co-writer Lori Rosene-Gambino, it's so under-developed it plays like a disastrous adaptation of a far more interesting novel.
Anniversary is on UK/ROI VOD from November 24th.
