How do you carry a little bit of pleasure to one of many saddest locations on Earth? If you happen to’re Al (Samantha Sensible), you carry round a ukulele and wing it daily. An in-house music therapist at a youngsters’s hospital in Texas, she spends her days attempting to entertain youngsters who could or could not know they’re dying whereas lending an ear to the dad and mom navigating their darkest hours. Every day, her duties might embrace something from singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to five-year-olds to looking for a rap tune that would make a sick teenager crack a smile.
She’d be the primary to inform you that cheering up the five-year-olds is a a lot simpler job. When she encounters the 17-year-old Charlie (Gabriela Ochoa Perez), {the teenager} desires nothing to do with music remedy. Having spent three years dwelling in hospitals and satisfied that everybody is refusing to inform her that she’s dying, Charlie thinks she has completely misplaced her style for diversions. Al accepts the problem of bonding with the woman, assembly her the place she is with playful grownup conversations and steadily constructing a friendship that modifications her eternally.
That’s… the entire film. And it’s wonderful.
The fantastic thing about “Charliebird,” written by Sensible and directed by Libby Ewing and received the U.S. Narrative Jury Prize on the 2025 Tribeca Competition, is how little it tries to do. The complete movie is constructed across the outstanding chemistry between its two lead actresses, with Sensible embodying Al with unimaginable empathy and sensitivity, and Perez steadily revealing the sensible, humorous teenage persona that her well being has by no means allowed her to indicate off. Main plot factors are minimal, because the movie merely provides us just a few stunning snapshots of a short season in two lives. The darkish actuality is that each hospital keep can solely have two doable endings, one comfortable and the opposite tragic. “Charliebird” explores each outcomes earlier than deciding on one, however it’s extra centered on the street to getting there.
One other power is the movie’s trustworthy strategy to a topic like music remedy. Al is sincerely dedicated to her career, and sees the act of placing smiles on the faces of sick youngsters as a vocation. And the movie portrays some lovely moments with youngsters and behind-the-scenes drama that reveals how significantly the adults take it. However Sensible and Ewing by no means indulge within the temptation to painting it as a magical step within the therapeutic course of, or to uncritically declare that artwork saves lives. That type of oversimplified strategy would have earned them loads of ovations at pageant Q&As, however it might have overshadowed one of many movie’s strongest concepts: that music remedy is usually a small distraction from inevitable tragedies that not everybody is able to recognize.
After all, that isn’t to say that it’s not price doing. A lot of the stress naturally rising from the movie’s easy plot revolves across the query of how a lot a tragic scenario can actually be improved. And whereas “Charliebird” by no means shies away from the bleakness of the destiny that awaits everybody, all the grins and laughter contained in cinematographer Luca Del Puppo’s tight pillbox frames make it clear the place the movie stands on the worth of maximizing the times that we do have. Some issues aren’t solvable, however some moments can final eternally when you forge a robust sufficient reminiscence.
Grade: B+
“Charliebird” premiered on the 2025 Tribeca Competition. It’s at present looking for U.S. distribution.
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