Mabel (2024)

-Written by Kyle Bain.  

2024 SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!

Young Callie (Lexi Perkel) has trouble making friends in her new town–other than her potted plant Mabel that is. As she navigates the normalities of childhood, she finds that there is more to life than she once believed. 

Mabel feels inorganic, it feels like it’s been fully fabricated, based on nothing that’s ever happened. Are there really children like Callie? Are there really people like her teacher, Mrs. G (Judy Greer)? I’m sure, somewhere, people like this exist–but the chances of them crossing paths, of having the opportunity to form any sort of relationship, seems unlikely. It’s these two characters, Callie and Mrs. G, that make it challenging to accept Mabel as plausible. Everything (or just about everything) stems from these characters, and, with that, much of the rest of Mabel becomes difficult to enjoy. 

It seems that Writers Joy Goodwin and Nicholas Ma are attempting to teach us something, but that something, like the story as a whole, is unnatural, incapable of fitting with the rest of the film. There are snippets of racism, sexism, and the like strewn throughout the course of the film–and I can’t fully understand why they exist in the film. They don’t affect the plot, they don’t develop the characters, they ultimately change nothing about Mabel. They play no real role in the film, and their existence throughout ultimately becomes nothing more than frustrating.

Mabel is uninspired, with run-of-the-mill cinematography, lighting that had the potential to play a massive role in this story, but didn’t, and one of the most frustrating characters in cinematic history in Callie. Mabel is a film that just goes through the motions, as if Goodwin and Ma just wanted to get a film made, but weren’t too worried about the quality of the finished product. 

Honestly, there was next to nothing that I appreciated about Mabel, as I found it terribly boring, completely unrealistic, and truly tiresome. With the exception of Greer and Christine Ko (Angela), as a result of their aesthetic, there was nothing else keeping me engaged. It was easy to look away, easy to forget about Callie, and I effectively sat and waited for Mabel to be over. I feel that Mabel could potentially appeal to younger audiences that are attempting to find their way in the world, that it might speak to them on an intellectual level as they try to find themselves. Beyond a younger audience, however, I’m not sure that this has the potential to reach viewers. 

Directed by Nicholas Ma. 

Written by Nicholas Ma & Joy Goodwin.  

Starring Lexi Perkel, Christine Ko, Lena Marano, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Judy Greer, Jim Santangeli, etc. 

3/10 = WORTH THE RISK, BUT YOU’VE BEEN WARNED