Jessica Goes to New York
2024 · 16m
Directed by John Carmel
Genres: comedy, coming-of-age, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, theatrical, whimsical
A vivacious but aimless young woman living a candy-coloured 1960s fantasy life receives a vintage vanity set hiding an unopened letter, and follows its trail to New York City, where a fairy-tale-like adventure forces her to confront the existential crisis she has been avoiding.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A candy-colored coming-of-age wrapped in fairy-tale dressing—the premise wants to subvert the escapism fantasy, but the execution plays it almost too earnestly, landing somewhere between whimsy and after-school special instead of genuinely weird.
The film's self-aware theatricality and deliberate visual grammar situate it firmly in a lineage of heightened indie coming-of-age; the vanity set as narrative device and the New York pilgrimage echo a considered tradition of object-driven storytelling.
What sells this is the tonal pivot—the shift from bubblegum fantasy to genuine existential reckoning hinges on a single choice in how the letter's reveal is played, and if that moment lands, everything about the candy-colored palette becomes bittersweet rather than saccharine.
Reviews
Unlike Jessica Peru's crisis, however, the film invites you to feast yourselves on its flourishes. Gorgeously lit scenes (the grass so vibrantly green in one shot, you cry to be out on a day like that), retro frame compositions, pop art colour schemes, quad split screens, whimsical fourth wall breaks whose twee charm pleasantly does not try to be the next Fleabag, and whip pans that are only a little like Wes Anderson.