JAMES WHITE American Independents

Josh Mond’s directorial debut is an observational coming-of-age drama about a young New Yorker who is forced to take control of his self-destructive lifestyle as he navigates his mother’s fight with a serious illness. Having served as producer on AFTERSCHOOL (AFI FEST 2008), TWO GATES OF SLEEP (AFI FEST 2010) and SIMON KILLER (AFI FEST 2012), Mond moves into the director’s chair for this very personal film, which draws from the experience of losing his own mother to cancer. Mond elicits raw, uninhibited performances from longtime friend Christopher Abbott and from actress Cynthia Nixon, who also lost a mother to cancer and battled the illness herself. These on- and off-screen relationships, along with highly tense visual style, form an intimate, deeply felt film. —Jenn Murphy