REELING (SXSW 2025) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Waiting for the pig to roast at his sister’s birthday luau, a man tosses a ball with a young girl, awkwardly catching it in a plastic scoop. He’s self-conscious about his coordination, but the girl is patient.
She points and asks about the scar at the top of his forehead, the one that wraps around to the back of his head. “Is that why your brain’s funny?”
He smiles, as if more relieved than offended. “Kinda. Yeah.”
Reeling, which made its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival, builds tension throughout the celebration to reveal just what happened that scarred Ryan (Ryan Wuestewald, Modern Runaway), causing him lose chunks of memory. But even without that explanation, the film is a sympathetic depiction of someone dealing with a traumatic brain injury and the discomfort his disability causes those around him.
The script by Yana Alliata, making her feature directing debut, and Amy Miner takes care to show Ryan’s struggle from the moments he arrives at his family’s gorgeous Hawaiian homestead, forgetting to turn off the car engine and almost leaving his sister’s cake in the backseat. He mumbles, berating himself, then sallies forth, putting on a good front.
Friends and relatives all introduce themselves, saying how he knew them. (“Is that where we’re at now?” one woman says privately.) While his sister, Meg (Nikki DeParis, Way Out Ahead of Us), mothers him, then feels frustrated for doing so, his brother, John (Hans Christopher, The Curse), simmers. He refuses to let Ryan help dig the roasting pit and says during a volleyball game later, “Play normal, all right?”
He tries. Even at a brisk 76 minutes, Reeling is at times painful to watch, thanks to Wuestewald’s poignant performance. Ryan laughs at inappropriate moments and can’t pick up on social cues, his yearning for how things used to be plain on his face. Cinematographer Rafael Leyva and Alliata stage the actors in such a way that heightens his isolation, whether he’s wading into the ocean or serving himself from the dinner table while the others talk around him.
Executive produced by noted director, producer, and writer Werner Herzog, Reeling is a portrait of a man trying to cope with a life changing event and occasionally finding some grace.
