{"id":844727,"date":"2026-09-12T00:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/844727\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T00:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:56:15","slug":"trash-mountain-review-caleb-hearons-movie-is-funny-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/844727\/","title":{"rendered":"Trash Mountain Review: Caleb Hearon’s Movie Is Funny, Sad"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first glance, Kris Rey\u2019s \u201cTrash Mountain,\u201d the deeply felt dramedy about two siblings whose hoarder father dies and leaves them having to sort through the rubble of his life, could seem like countless other movies you\u2019ve seen before. But the closer you look, the more you begin to see something quietly moving and mirthful emerge from within its familiar narrative beats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The key? Star and co-writer Caleb Hearon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For those who are unfamiliar, Hearon has steadily emerged as one of the funniest, most incisive voices in comedy working today. In addition to being a killer stand-up and storyteller \u2014 whose recent special, \u201cModel Comedian<\/a>,\u201d was a true gem of the form \u2014 he\u2019s also a naturally witty and earnest performer, making the most of a couple of moments in \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2<\/a>.\u201d But there has always been a sense that he\u2019s deserving of bigger parts that make full use of his talents. <\/p>\n

That moment is now here with \u201cTrash Mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jane\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

This film sees Hearon not just starring, but writing alongside his co-writer Ruby Caster, to wonderful results. Drawing from much of Hearon\u2019s personal life surrounding the sudden death of his father<\/a>, it has him bringing his same razor-sharp comedic voice and also stretching his writing muscles to tell a more sincerely bittersweet story of familial loss. Even as it can feel familiar in its broad narrative strokes, occasionally playing like a modern riff on \u201cGarden State,\u201d Hearon instills the film with such deep feeling and hilarious bite that you end up falling in love with it all the same. It may be called \u201cTrash Mountain,\u201d but there are plenty of emotional and comedic treasures awaiting all who make it to the top.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first treasure comes early when we meet Gavin (Hearon), an energetic and playful emcee of a drag show living in Chicago, blissfully wandering the city with his friends. When his sister, Abbi (an excellent Zooey Deschanel), calls to inform him that their father has died, we cut to a beautiful wide shot that creates the first of many effective juxtapositions between comedy and tragedy, joy and sadness.<\/p>\n

Because the tricky thing is that, in addition to Gavin having left rural Missouri to go to Chicago, his father was also a hoarder and an alcoholic who had shut himself off from the world. Thus, in addition to navigating this unexpected grief, there are the many logistical challenges he, his sister, and his sister\u2019s husband (a low-key yet great Kyle Marvin) will have to wade through. <\/p>\n

The way the trio bounces off each other feels real, with uproarious comedic lines coming out fast and furious before this coping mechanism gives way to a growing melancholy \u2014 and not just over the death in the family. They\u2019ve drifted apart in some respects, but they also are deeply connected, with the fractures in their family also serving as the ties that bind them together.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Rapinoe\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

As delicately shot by cinematographer Andy Rydzewski, who previously lensed the even more chaotic dramedy \u201cFriendship<\/a>,\u201d everything feels intimate and lived-in, just as he finds great uses of wide shots throughout. From the moments where Gavin begins to connect with a former Seattle academic (a playful yet poetic Jaboukie Young-White) who has now found happiness in this small community, to a fireside chat that he has with his sister where his armor begins to crack, you\u2019re just so immersed in gentle, painful rhythms of it all. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a film that doesn\u2019t shy away from wrestling with death, capturing its inevitable suddenness and the strange limbo period you\u2019re in afterwards, though it\u2019s also bursting with all the authentic messiness of life.<\/p>\n

We see how both family and the various characters in the community, even when well-intentioned, can be more than a little chaotic. At the same time, you get the deep sense that Hearon, for all he is poking fun at the situation and his own story, deeply loves all of the people in it. Even as he delivers plenty of withering jokes that earn genuine laughs before the film gives way to tears, when all falls into place, he finds an enduring wisdom all his own.<\/p>\n

Read all of our Toronto Film Festival coverage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At first glance, Kris Rey\u2019s \u201cTrash Mountain,\u201d the deeply felt dramedy about two siblings whose hoarder father dies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[76166,88,206,357529,176152],"class_list":["post-844727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-caleb-hearon","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-trash-mountain","tag-zooey-deschanel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}