{"id":556514,"date":"2026-03-24T02:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556514\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T02:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:09:10","slug":"ben-wang-stars-in-will-ropps-feature-directing-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556514\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Wang Stars in Will Ropp’s Feature Directing Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unhealthy fixation on his high school English teacher leads to the title character\u2019s very public crash-out in Will Ropp\u2019s endearing feature directing debut, \u201cBrian.\u201d<\/a> An anxiety-riddled stress case who careens from mood swing to mood swing like branches on a tree, Brian<\/a> (\u201cKarate Kid: Legends\u201d star Ben Wang in a sweetly charming performance) opts to run for class president to get closer to Brooke (Natalie Morales), who\u2019s the campaign advisor at a suburban high school. In the process, Brian winds up getting closer to himself, and to new gay student Justin (Joshua Colley) who becomes his best (and only) friend.<\/p>\n

Ropp deftly handles the mental health issues his film<\/a> grapples with without ostentatious showmanship; Brian\u2019s issues are never spelled out, and that\u2019s probably because he himself doesn\u2019t fully understand them. He\u2019s prone to outbursts and fits of rage that can involve almost ripping a desktop off its hinges or telling a drama teacher to go fuck himself. <\/p>\n

\"PROJECT<\/a> \""Dead<\/a> <\/p>\n

Most of these bits are played for laughs, but it doesn\u2019t mean \u201cBrian\u201d is insensitive, even as much as the protagonist is often the butt of the world\u2019s cruel jokes. He\u2019s also cripplingly unable to laugh at himself, and his combination of self-awareness, fumbling awkwardness, and wild fits very much conveys Adam Sandler as Barry Egan in \u201cPunch-Drunk Love\u201d<\/a> energy.<\/p>\n

Brian\u2019s parents (Randall Park and Edi Patterson) and brother Kyle (Sam Song Li) maintain a probably too close and too open and honest relationship, for some \u2014 masturbation is spoken about openly, as is Park\u2019s character\u2019s bisexuality at one point. These are mostly cookie-cutter-kooky characters that don\u2019t add much to the textures of the film, but they serve as interesting foils to see where the kid is coming from. Brian also has a perceptive therapist (William H. Macy, whose daughter Sophia Macy plays the insufferably precocious feminist campaigning against Brian) to help him get through the day to day, but most of his relationships are superficial at best because it\u2019s so hard for people to get and to stay close to him.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s until new kid Justin arrives, having been kicked out of a neighboring Catholic school not just because he\u2019s out and proud, but also because he told an authority figure he doesn\u2019t believe in God. Colley (\u201cSenior Year\u201d) makes an impression as the type of too-cool-for-school student we all wish we could\u2019ve been friends with at the most awkward phases in our lives. For Brian, that\u2019s being 17 years old with no classmate confidantes to call his own. The common denominator in most of his classmates being turned against him is, of course, himself. He just hasn\u2019t come to realize that yet.<\/p>\n

Frantically searching for an extracurricular activity, Brian auditions for the student play but botches the tryout when he spews a raging fit on the director of the play; it\u2019s too bad, because he would have made callbacks. (At one point earlier in this scene, a white female student does a cringe monologue reading from Patsy\u2019s point of view in \u201c12 Years a Slave.\u201d) So when that doesn\u2019t pan out, that\u2019s how Brian ends up running for class president; Brooke is very much aware of and icked out by his crush on her, but \u201cBrian\u201d doesn\u2019t play Brian and Brooke\u2019s dynamic as anything that\u2019s creepy.<\/p>\n

Not all of the performances are uniformly excellent, and some of the one-liners Ropp writes in for Brian\u2019s classmates and parents land awkwardly. Chinese American actor Wang, however, reaffirms his leading man capabilities in a teen comedy that\u2019s all about embracing the awkwardness of high school. <\/p>\n

Ropp\u2019s darkly funny and ultimately sweet-natured comedy is a promising start for the actor-turned-director. With a little more scope, his next film will be even better. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n

\u201cBrian\u201d premiered at SXSW<\/a> 2026. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. <\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unhealthy fixation on his high school English teacher leads to the title character\u2019s very public crash-out in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[37496,49,48,75,1554,337,209,50926],"class_list":["post-556514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-brian","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-movies","tag-reviews","tag-sxsw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}