‘Atropia’: Sundance Review

Dir/scr: Hailey Gates. US. 2025. 103 minutes

Hailey Gates’ formidable debut function Atropia is stuffed with comedian potential that’s by no means fairly realised. The combination of warfare video games satire, deadpan farce and candy romance offers amusement alongside the best way with out chopping as deep because it typically guarantees. The dedicated performances of Alia Shawkat and Callum Turner plus the Sundance US Grand Jury prize ought to assure consideration for an uneven however typically participating  enterprise.

A sitcom sensibility with its straightforward targets and predictable punchlines

Gates units the scene with a wry statement from Ambrose Bierce in 1875 that “Warfare is God’s method of educating People geography.”  An actor in Uncut Gems (2019) and Challengers (2024), Gates has Luca Guadagnino on board as a producer for her feature-length directorial debut. Her brief Shako Mako (2019), additionally starring Alia Shawkat, units the template for the opening scenes of Atropia. It’s 2006. Carrying a basket of bread, a girl navigates the slim alleys of a sand-blown village stuffed with menace. An explosion is adopted by wails of anguish as residents scream “Dying to America”. Somebody stops the scene as a tool has did not detonate and we realise it has all been an phantasm, suggesting hints of The Truman Present (1998), Westworld (1973) and others. The fact is a 600-acre website in California containing a mock village used to check reasonable battle scene situations earlier than American troopers are deployed to Iraq.

The residents of ‘Atropia’ are all actors, paid to make that phantasm as genuine as doable. None of them take it extra severely than Shawkat’s Fayruz Abbas. She treats the duty like a continuing audition and has gone full Paula Strasberg as a demanding appearing coach to the others.

Fictional nation Atropia (shades of Duck Soup’s Freedonia) is a model of one thing that truly exists. On the finish of the movie we be taught that some 200 mock villages are used all through America to coach troops. Right here the village is named Medina Wasl and is about in an space dubbed The Field by the navy. Predictably, their media channel is named Field Information. Gates secures some laughter from the innocence and incompetence of the nervous recruits, the callous indifference of their navy superiors and common attitudes to warfare. Shallow and apparent in locations, it flirts with dangerous style all through and shows a  sitcom sensibility with its straightforward targets and predictable punchlines. A number of the materials would additionally not appear misplaced in a comedy sketch present.

Two vital occasions change the course of journey as Fayruz learns {that a} main film star (performed by a good-sport uncredited A-lister) is coming to Atropia as a part of his analysis for a brand new function. The chance to impress a Hollywood bigwig is unimaginable to withstand however only a throwaway notion within the common hodge podge of concepts. The A-lister does return in a post-credits scene. Extra considerably, Fayruz meets Abu Cube (Turner), an American service veteran now solid as an rebel chief and ready to take the video games as severely as her. 

Shawkat’s full of life, witty efficiency and Turner’s attraction work arduous to encourage our funding within the blossoming romance between Fayruz and Abu Cube and the dilemmas they face. A number of the their most romantic moments are set towards lovely desert backdrops warmly captured by cinematographer Eric Ok. Yue ( I Noticed The TV Glow). The connection will not be with out its attraction however it pushes the movie in the direction of extra standard territory.  Later, archive footage underlines the realities of America’s tour into Iraq beneath President George W. Bush. Gates’ earnest steer in the direction of political commentary and poignancy is well-intentioned  however it doesn’t really feel as if the movie has earned that privilege.