The Sundance Film Festival is a home for independent cinema. It’s somewhere for creatives and filmmakers to express themselves through obscure art. Being so obscure can lead to many films garnering a pulverizing response. It can sometimes lead films down the awards show circuit, like 2022’s best picture winner, Coda, and 2025’s two-time Oscar nominee, A Real Pain. Both films premiered at Sundance without any expectations of Oscar gold. The point is that viewers never know the types of films that Sundance could deliver. 2025’s Sundance proved a more divisive response compared to recent years.
Besides the behind-the-scenes drama of Sundance “possibly” changing locations, the reaction to the festival was all over the place. Some films were met with a positive response, some mixed, and others universally negative. First-time director Katrina Zhu’s film Bunnylovr falls firmly in the middle. The story follows Rebecca (also played by Zhu), a camgirl who enters a relationship with a toxic client named John (Austin Amelio.) Meanwhile, she is trying to reconnect with her dying father, William (Perry Young), and co-exist with her best friend, Bella (Rachel Sennott.)
In theory, that premise teases a story showcasing complex and interpersonal relationships in an ever-evolving digital world. Unfortunately, the finished product offers something much more middling and underwhelming. A significant reason for that is the screenplay, which Zhu also writes. The film wants to cover rather broad concepts over 83 minutes. That includes jealousy of success (particularly amongst friends), toxic romantic relationships, and even toxic familial ones. Each idea has room to cover an entire feature film in its own right. In the case of Bunnylovr, It feels like nothing more than a series of vignettes over a cohesive story.
Zhu injects each of Rebecca’s interactions with an underlying sense of tension. They are a series of accentuating moments between physical danger and emotional distress. Arguably, it’s in these moments that the film is at its best. Zhu has a capable screen presence that keeps viewers engaged in her plight. From the highs and lows, audiences will wonder whenever the rug will be pulled from under Rebecca. Can she find happiness and make peace with those around her? It’s a compelling notion that leads viewers to hope for a final satisfying payoff.
Again, that blame falls on the screenplay’s lack of narrative drive. Zhu is instead trying to strike an almost ethereal quality to Rebecca’s journey. It’s oftentimes dreamlike but never as compelling as it thinks it is. Mixed with the tension, that dreamy quality acts as a balloon slowly inflating. The air is released with an underwhelming rather than satisfying pop as time passes. The lack of cohesion in the ending serves as an incredible disservice to Zhu’s incredibly engaging central performance. As languid as her journey is, one can not deny that we grow to care how she ends up.
The struggle involves the supporting character lacking depth in the overarching story. Amelio, Sennott, and Young are a capable and exciting batch of supporting actors. Audiences have seen their strengths shine brightly in other projects. In Bunnylovr, each role is reduced to a mere archetype. They all serve as nothing more than pieces on the board of Rebecca’s journey. That proves rather frustrating because these actors are capable of much more. It feels like a waste of potential for what this story could have been with the proper depth in the script. Such a thought leaves me with a question regarding Bunnylovr that one hates to ask.
Is Bunnylovr nothing more than a filmmaking showcase for Zhu? Did she go into the project to show she could be a filmmaker? It will be impossible ever to know the answer to that question. Zhu certainly holds one’s attention and even gives the jumbled script moments to shine in places. The scenes with her father, in particular, proved a highlight in the piece, showing proper depth.
The film delivers a genuine sense of humanity and heart within these moments. It’s a welcome change, allowing Zhu and Young to showcase their true acting range. Those sequences deliver an excellent change of pace to some of Rebecca’s other interactions. Zhu’s scenes with Rachel Sennott attempt to provide a palpable jealousy in the friendship, resulting in tension. At the same time, her scenes with Austin Amelio are frighteningly unpredictable. Sennott and Amelio’s characters have no depth, simply feeding into Zhu’s arch as Rebecca. They exist as nothing more than ideas of characters to move the plot forward. Those sequences are arguably the film’s weakest as they lead one to believe in a resolution that never comes.
Of the seven titles I saw virtually at Sundance, Bunnylovr is one of the weakest. Katrina Zhu’s screenplay makes many promises that it never delivers on. It’s easy to see how this story could provide a satisfying character study for some trying to find their place in the world. Instead, viewers are left with a scattershot project filled with nothing more than ideas. At 83 minutes, those ideas are never given the depth or insight they deserve. It shows promise in a beautiful, dreamlike film, but that can not compensate for the lack of substance. The results show that Katrina Zhu has a good eye behind the camera but needs a better script to let her talents shine.
Bunnylovr recently played at the Sundance Film Festival.
Learn more at the festival’s site for the title.
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