Sophia Pinsky seems like a functioning adult. But when she loses her girlfriend and her grandfather in the same day and moves back in with her authoritarian Russian grandmother, Marina, everything she thought she’d escaped is waiting to welcome her back with open arms. Thrilled to have Sophia under her influence again, and obsessed with finding her a proper (male) partner, Marina conspires to marry her off to Trevor, a nice Jewish boy Sophia has known since they were in diapers. After the date with him is a dud, Sophia finds her way to a weekly open mic night, where on a whim she gets on stage and discovers there’s actually an audience for her Queer-Russian-Jewish-American sense of humor. Everything comes to a head at the family Shabbat dinner when Sophia and Trevor try to humiliate Marina by pretending to have fallen for each other, unaware that Marina is planning her own announcement.
Acting
Karpovsky's deadpan delivery against Popova's theatrical dominance.
Writing
Specificity of Russian-Jewish-Bostonian family dynamics rarely captured.
Director
Amanda Lundquist
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film emerged from Boston's actual Jewish-Russian émigré community, with many cast members drawing from lived experience of the specific cultural pressure cooker depicted.
Director Amanda Lundquist developed the script through community workshops with Russian-Jewish LGBTQ+ young adults, making Sophia's open mic material partially crowdsourced from real coming-out stories.
US
