Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Adam Hoelzel
Starring: Jesse Garcia, Jess Weixler, Robert Longstreet, David Koechner, Sonja O'Hara, Shakira Barrera
I have my TV and audio equipment set up just how I like it. It's all neat and tidy, and pleasing to the eye. Well, from the front anyway. Peer behind my TV and stereo rack and you'll be greeted by an off-putting spaghetti junction of tangled wires. Replacing or adding a component requires taking this mess apart and trying to figure out which wire goes where, which can be headache inducing.
A thriller is a lot like an A/V setup. If it's well assembled the viewer will be so enamoured of the shiny facades and pulsing VU meters that they won't give a second thought to the mess of cabling that powers the whole thing. But if the plot is confusing the audience will start to metaphorically look behind the components to see if any wires have come loose or are out of place.
In this context, Tender is the sort of thriller that will leave the viewer with a fistful of RCA leads in their hands and no idea what function they're supposed to serve. I was able to watch it on a screener, which meant I could rewind scenes to try to make sense of some details, and I still couldn't get my head around much of its messy plot. Anyone who sees this in a cinema will likely be lost.
Writer/director Adam Hoelzel's feature debut gets off to a promising start. Married couple Billie (Jess Weixler) and Mick (Jesse Garcia) move into the suburban home the latter recently inherited from a deceased uncle. A cleverly constructed time-lapse montage shows how the new home gives their troubled marriage a temporary boost before the couple end up at each others' throats once again. Boxes of unpacked bric a brac serve as a visual metaphor for the far from certain future of this marriage. Mick is having an affair with Taryn (Shakira Barrera), the daughter of the local mayor (Robert Peters) whose re-election campaign provides Mick with employment while he tries to make it as a metal sculptor. Billie probably knows about Mick's infidelity, but she's clinging on to the relationship as so many of her other endeavours in life have ended up in failure.
As if that wasn't trouble enough, it turns out Mick's uncle never paid any property tax, and so the county is set to evict the couple in three weeks unless they can come up with the thousands of dollars owed. An unexpected solution to Mick and Billie's arrives in the form of a gold bar they discover behind a wall in their new home's basement. They take the bar to pawnbroker Daniel (Robert Longstreet), who dampens their enthusiasm when he lets them know that despite its value (half a million dollars), the fact that it's marked with a criminal gang symbol means it would be impossible for him to offload without entering the sort of murky channels he's unwilling to risk navigating. But Daniel changes his tune when the couple find dozens more gold bars in their home. Suddenly it's worth the risk, and a plan is set in motion.
What that plan is exactly...well, I'm still struggling to make sense of it. It involves a highly unconvincing plot to donate the gold to the mayor, who in turn will give Mick $50 million on behalf of the council to purchase one of his sculptures. There are plenty of thrillers where the protagonists don't think their plan through thoroughly enough, but Tender is a case of a screenwriter being equally naive in their plotting. There is much about Hoelzel's film that will have you scratching your head, and I found the final act positively baffling in its various twists and machinations. There is nothing organic about the storytelling, with characters appearing just when the plot requires them rather than integrating them into the story in a more natural fashion. Important plot points are similarly dished out at the very point when they become essential, and almost every detail is revealed through dialogue rather than visual storytelling. Some of the plot contrivances are laughably convenient, like how one character is able to open another's safe because the combination code is his childhood phone number!!!
The direction is similarly amateurish. Many scenes are so geographically confusing that we miss out on dialogue because our minds are trying to figure out where the characters are. There is a notable lack of essential coverage in several scenes, with no establishing shots to let us know the location. Scenes start with characters seated across from one another only for the dialogue to suggest that they've literally just met, as though they teleported into the location - we rarely see anyone enter a scene.
The professionalism of the cast papers over some of these cracks, with Weixler especially good. But with every character written as a device rather than a person, there's only so much the actors can do. Perhaps the biggest issue with Tender is how unlikeable Mick and Billie are. We simply don't care whether they get away with their unlikely scheme or not. There are many great thrillers with awful protagonists, but the good ones will make us root for an anti-hero regardless of their flaws. Tender is so invested in its plot that it neglects its characters, and with a plot this confusing the whole thing falls apart.
Tender world premieres as the closing night film of the 2026 Dances With Films festival on June 28th.
