''Late Bloomers'' is a 2023 American

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...

comedy drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple co ...

film, directed by Lisa Steen in her directorial debut, from a screenplay by Anna Greenfield. It stars Karen Gillan,

Margaret Sophie Stein Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Indo-Iranian languages, Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and r ...

, Jermaine Fowler, Talia Balsam and Kevin Nealon.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

took place in New York. The film had its world premiere at

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

on March 10, 2023, and was released on June 7, 2024, by Vertical.

Synopsis

Louise, an aimless twenty-something musician who is recently single, is injured when she drunkenly breaks her hip. The subsequent physical therapy sees her associate with people twice her age, and she meets Antonina, a Polish lady who speaks no English, and is hired to be her caretaker.

Cast

* Karen Gillan as Louise *

as Antonina * Jermaine Fowler as Brick * Talia Balsam as Dorothy * Kevin Nealon as Al * Michelle Twarowska as Sylvia

Production

The script was written by Anna Greenfield and based on her personal experiences. Greenfield collaborated on the film with Lisa Steen, whom she had known since college. In July 2022, Karen Gillan, Margaret Sophie Stein, and Jermaine Fowler were revealed to have joined the cast, and principal photography was said to have wrapped in Brooklyn, New York. The film was produced by We're Doin' Great and Park Pictures.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

Festival in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

on March 10, 2023. In March 2024, Vertical acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released on June 7, 2024.

Reception

Critical reception

In ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. The site is updated several times a day, with ...

'', Damon Wise described ''Late Bloomers'' as "an intimate, defiantly female-fronted indie, showcasing an engaging and refreshingly vanity-free performance from Karen Gillan". Jason Bailey of ''The Playlist'' felt the film was predictable in places and had familiar tropes, but described it as "about as well-acted and enjoyable a version of this particular thing as you're likely to find." Samantha Bergeson of ''

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

'' gave the film a grade of D, writing that "the film doesn't open up in time to blossom into something great", and its "whispers of emotional depth…come too little and too late."

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Late Bloomers 2023 films 2023 comedy-drama films 2023 directorial debut films 2023 independent films Films set in Brooklyn American coming-of-age comedy-drama films 2020s coming-of-age comedy-drama films 2020s female buddy films Vertical Entertainment films 2020s English-language films American independent films English-language comedy-drama films English-language independent films