SXSW '25: Reeling’s fraught family drama exerts a strong pull

Reeling is filmmaker Yana Alliata’s first narrative feature, and it’s a strong debut and a worthy feature at SXSW 2025. Ryan Brown played Hamlet once. He had the whole play memorized. That was before a motorcycle collision shattered his mind and his body. Five years later, Ryan (Ryan Wuestewald) has put himself back together as well as possible. He knows that he’ll never recover some of what he had pre-collision. He can get through the day with regular meds and a careful schedule. He can drive again, albeit slowly, and he’s visiting his sister Meg (Nikki DeParis) at their family home in Hawai’i for her birthday luau—his first trip by himself since the collision. Ryan is mostly happy to be with his family. His family is mostly glad to see him, save his bitter, cold brother John (Hans Christopher). But while Ryan is functional, he’s brittle. While his family loves him, they don’t know how to be close to him. And while Ryan’s memory is damaged, it isn’t gone. The right trigger—say, an emotionally exhausting day spent close to people Ryan has complex relationships with—might bring it to the surface. It will be a long day and a longer night.

Alliata uses the Brown family’s intimately staged, slow-burning crisis to explore guilt, memory, and the act of living. The result is compelling and, at times, so raw that it is uncomfortable to watch. It’s a good discomfort, born from the care and skill Alliata and her creative team deploy in crafting Reeling. While Ryan is Reeling’s lead and primary viewpoint character, each Brown family member and their friends get at least a moment to themselves and space to show who they are amidst the birthday luau’s emotional pressure cooker. Fabrizio (Fabrizio Alliata) is fascinated by tarot but treats it as a curiosity instead of a thinking tool, and can only offer platitudes to Ryan when he’s frustrated that he can unconsciously conjure one of Hamlet’s monologues but cannot open a beer without help. Meg loves Ryan dearly and sincerely wants the best for him, but she struggles to balance his needs with her own and with the fact that it’s her first birthday since their Dad’s death. John’s a decent father and uncle, but he likes to push, doesn’t like being pushed, and treats Ryan’s presence as one big shove.

Everyone in Reeling rings true, thanks to fine performances and Alliata’s careful control of tone. Ryan goes through the wringer in Reeling, but Wuestewald doesn’t treat him as an inspirational standee. He approaches Ryan’s brain damage and its effects on him thoughtfully. He builds him into a complete person, struggling with the awful dissonance of simultaneously being somewhere he’s known all his life and badly out of his depth. It’s impressive work, highlighted by Alliata’s thoughtful contextualization of the Brown family’s dynamic and her skillful sketching of what their lives are like beyond the luau—from Ryan’s keeping a med-tracking journal to a family friend discreetly asking who, if anyone, would like to get high to John refereeing a swim race between his daughter and her cousins. As fraught, personal, and uncomfortable as parts of the night get, it is long. There is a kalua pig to be prepared, dancing to be done, and pool to be played. Life does not stop amidst calamitous upheaval. 

Alliata’s crew, particularly cinematographer Rafael Leyva and editor Chris Punsalan emphasize this through how they construct the Brown family home. It’s a large estate, large enough for folks to break off from the main party and find their own space, but not so big that they won’t be overheard. It’s long been a constant in the family’s lives, but while it’s hardly falling into ruin, John can’t keep up with it himself. A toilet’s broken and still hasn’t been fixed. The greenery needs maintenance. But John won't hear it when Ryan offers to work with his brother to take care of the estate. He’d rather his home crumble than have to face Ryan-as-he-is. The estate’s design and the storytelling built around it boost the impact of a key late-film flashback, where the estate’s lovingly cared for and pre-collision Ryan and John are close and warm with each other.

Reeling is a well-made, well-performed film. It was one of the movies I was most curious about seeing at SXSW, and I’m happy to write that it was a rewarding, thought-provoking watch.

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