Mouse Review: Heartfelt and Emotional Coming Of Age
Thanks to the IFC Team for sending me an early screener for this film!
Co-Directors Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan (Ghostlight) hit the festival circuit with Mouse, their second collaboration together.
Synopsis:
"When her closest friendship is suddenly disrupted the summer before senior year, a teenager struggles to find her footing and develops an unexpected, complicated bond with her best friend’s mother."
Cast:
Sophie Okonedo, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Chloe Coleman, David Hyde Pierce, Iman Vellani
Release Date:
In Limited Theaters November 6th, Wide Release November 13th
Immersive Coming Of Age Enviorment
I always find myself adoring movies that really depict a realistic and grounded school environment. Reason being that they are really relatable, I think for everyone but especially me as someone who just recently finished the school experience. Mouse very quickly puts you into this 2000s environment, immersing you into the location and characters. This helps you get invested into Kupferer and Coleman's friendship immediately, which makes the suddenness of the latter's accident even more hurtful. Although this story is built on trauma and the relationships formed because of it, you still get a lot of classic tropes for a coming of age movie. Kupferer's character has to worry about self confidence and mean girls at her school, something that grounds her as a character you really want to root for. What I really appreciated was how the story was able to balance both the traumatic events and just crafting a normal life for our main characters. Although the tragedy is really the main through line of the story, you still see lots of things Kupferer is trying to deal with heading into her final year of high school. Her whole life was centered around Coleman's character, so when that goes away she can't really find herself. Obviously the way she was taken away changes the circumstances slightly, but I think many people will find themselves in her as a character and that again played into the investment you have in her throughout the runtime.
Performances Anchor Emotions
Going into a smaller budget film, you always wonder how good the performances will be, as they are anchored by mostly unknown actors. This is not a problem at all in this film, starting with Katherine Mallen Kupferer in the lead role. This character begins as very reserved with her emotions, finding it hard to connect with anyone around her. She finds it very hard to be outgoing socially and never directly handles her trauma until much later in the film. This makes it mostly a very subtle performance from her, which I really appreciated as it feels incredibly realistic. You can't even really imagine how hard it would be for someone to not only have to deal with the characters around her, but then the one she could genuinely connect with being taken away from her. That leads to her dynamic with Sophie Okonedo, the mother of her former friend. Okonedo is well established in this industry as an Academy Award nominee, so it's really nice to see her among this cast of younger actors. Her character deals with the trauma in different ways to Kupferer's, making for a really interesting mix of perspectives. She has many scenes on the back end that really show why she's made a name for herself in the industry over many years.
Luckily, this film also features a cast of supporting characters that are also very enjoyable. I have to start with Iman Vellani, mostly known for her role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is incredibly nice to see her in a non-Marvel role, and also for her to be as charming as she was. It does feel very similar to her in-real-life personality in a lot of ways, running a DVD video store and being very goofy in a lot of areas. However, once she does delve into her trauma with Kupferer's character, it becomes a really sweet and emotional performance. Tara Mallen plays her Mom, who is clearly dealing with many different personal issues of her own. Although this leads her to lash out at many different times, I really appreciated the layers they added to her character by the end. Part of that is due to the complicated performance from Mallen herself. David Hyde Pierce has one really emotional scene with Kupferer towards the end and generally is able to sell his role very well.
Complex and Engaging Relationships
One of the most interesting aspects of this film was seeing how the traumatic event rippled across the entire cast of characters. We mostly see things through the eyes of Kupferer, but this trauma leads her to form many unlikely friendships. The first is with Okonedo, and their dynamic goes from very sweet to very complicated. Although their bond is clearly helping both sides, it eventually goes too far and the honest reckoning between them is really well written. Another unexpected bond for me was between Kupferer and Beck Nolan's Brad, the former boyfriend of Coleman's character. This very easily could have gone in very uncomfortable directions, but instead enters her life as another crutch. Brad isn't portrayed in the greatest way in the first 20-30 minutes, but once we get to see more of his emotions it becomes a really interesting character. The relationship between Kupferer and Mallen may be the most complex of all, as you can see both are trying but failing miserably to connect with each other. Mallen is swept aside by Kupferer for a lot of the film, which is reflected by how little we see her as a viewer. This is a pretty genius meta choice from Thompson and O'Sullivan, whose joint vision really helped build this world around its relationships. Nothing feels forced and it takes a very honest approach to the trauma from Kupferer plus everyone around her.
Certain Characters Left Out To Dry
Now, the flip side of that previous point is my one drawback for this film. Although those main few relationships got a really great amount of time to shine, it did feel like some were left out to dry a little too much. The first part of that would be the ones that we did see for a few scenes, like Mallen/Nolan's characters. When these characters were on screen, I really loved their dynamic with Kupferer. However, with the focus more on other areas, they tended to feel a little underbaked at times. I do think there is a bit of meta storytelling there, as I said before, but I think it could have helped the story a lot if we got more of a balanced approach to those relationships. Then there comes some characters that simply were left one dimensional due to where the focus was. Addisyn Grace Cain and Audrey Grace Marshall play two characters who are mostly meant to be a classic portrayal of attention-seeking high school girls. However, I did get hints of a deeper trauma within them as well, and it felt weird to never really explore that. Especially when they took a character like the one Mallen portrays, someone who is mostly a very rude person but still loves the main character, and gave her different layers. Both of those actors were certainly capable of more material and with this one having 120 minutes of runtime, I think certain other things could have been shaved down to pave the way for even more complicated relationships. Maybe this would have made the narrative feel a bit all over the place, but I think these talented filmmakers definitely could have made it work.
Final Thoughts
Mouse was able to evoke a lot of emotions out of me and checked all the boxes of what I want out of a coming-of-age film. The subtle style of storytelling may not be for everyone, and there's certainly a few issues, but this is absolutely a standout film in a 2026 full of them. I would definitely recommend checking this out when it comes to theaters over the next few weeks!
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Mouse is ranked 31st out of the 95 new releases I've seen this year.
Editor's Note: I've only included the top 20 from my 2026 new releases list, for editing purposes.
2026 Ranked:
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