Independent Film Company
Despite the familiar coming-of-age tropes it explores, Mouse, the latest movie from life and filmmaking partners Kelly O’ Sullivan and Alex Thompson (Ghostlight, 2024), glimmers with an extraordinary authenticity now increasingly rare in this historically well-trodden genre. Loosely informed by a tragedy O’ Sullivan faced in her final years of adolescence, Mouse builds profound characters who face loneliness, guilt, and transformation with an ardent connectability that transcends the movie’s relatively small scale and lets it reverberate with lasting emotional impact.
The film takes place in 2002, in the suburbs of North Little Rock, where best friends Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupfere) and Callie (Chloe Coleman) are embarking on their final day of junior year before the summer holidays begin. Minnie might be at the top of her class, but is a painfully shy wallflower, particularly in comparison to the pretty, bubbly Callie, who dreams of a life singing and dancing on the world’s biggest stages, aspirations already well underway thanks to her central positioning in their school’s theater. The two girls’ social standing is exemplified in the movie’s striking opening moments, when a school tradition of teepeeing the houses of esteemed classmates leaves Callie’s stately home covered in toilet paper, while only one masked prankster shows up to decorate Minnie’s working-class bungalow. Despite their disparate personalities, O’ Sullivan’s screenplay wastes no time in solidifying the credibility of Callie and Minnie’s lifelong connection: the two girls like night and day, all part of the same circadian rhythm.
Minnie and Callie say goodbye to their penultimate high school year, celebrating with a big sleepover at the latter’s house, where Callie’s stay-at-home mother Helen (Sophie Okonedo), who also moonlights as her vocal coach, has prepared the early 2000s sleepover of many dreams, complete with ample snacks and a slip-and-slide. After the more cutthroat classmates go to bed, Minnie and Callie discuss the senior year that beckons them and the freedoms of adulthood beyond. While Minnie feels uncertain about what she wants from the world, Callie has her plan laid out to a T, aspiring to follow in the footsteps of many great actors who find their big break on Broadway. Within the next twenty-four hours, on the very first day of summer vacation, Minnie learns that Callie will never reach her lofty goals, that she will be taken away from her best friend and family in a tragic accident that shifts the trajectory of their entire worlds.
Independent Film Company
These characters and rich exposition are presented before Mouse’s black and bright pink title card even makes an appearance, and the rest of the film’s rhythms push at a much slower pace in sync with the figures it concentrates upon, all in distinctive forms of freefall as they attempt to pick up the pieces of their lives and manage their phases of grief. Resuming three months after Callie’s death, just as Minnie begins senior year on her own, the filmmakers’ vision stays hyperfocused on her character, who shows up in nearly every frame: her increasingly othered perspective without the support of her most loyal confidant, her complicated relationship with her mother and their working-class roots (Tara Mallen, Kupferer’s real-life mom), and most notably, the slippery companionship that blossoms with Helen in the wake of her daughter’s passing.
Unmoored from their surroundings in the aftermath of their loss, Minnie and Helen spend more and more time together, particularly when Minnie decides to sing a number at the senior talent showcase dedicated to Callie, and Helen boards as her vocal coach. Mouse carefully inspects this unlikely bond and its nuances, which range from co-dependent to restorative from moment to moment. While Minnie never tries to take over Callie’s former life, she cannot avoid emulation as she tries to honor her friend’s memory in any way she can, an instinct often reinforced by Helen’s impulsive generosity: loaning Minnie Callie’s old car, homecoming dress, and even her bed some nights. Despite playing such different women in flux, Kupferer and Okonedo instill memorable conviction and chemistry in their characterizations, building an unexpected but thoroughly moving central connection within the film, filled with emotional ebbs and flows that fortify its overall impression.
Reflective of O’ Sullivan’s teen years during the early aughts, the movie depicts a bygone era through tiny details that speak so clearly to the times: video rental stores, glow-in-the-dark stars on bedroom ceilings, and Michelle Branch needle drops. Minnie’s adolescence is challenging enough, but luckily it happens before the age of social media, a major facet of the contemporary world that (thankfully) has no place in Mouse. While modern coming-of-age stories often feel intertwined with the online world and social media out of necessity, Mouse feels refreshing because it exists before that became such a soul-crushing influence on youth culture.
This integrity crosses into other registers of Mouse as well, culminating in a film that delivers a specific innocence despite the tragedy at its core. In a zeitgeist where adults playing teenagers and perpetually heavy subject matter through shows like Euphoria have inevitably shifted how teenage narratives are represented, Mouse imbues a virtue that firmly supports the believability of its characters and their world. When Minnie strikes up a budding romance with a girl from another school, Kat (Iman Vellani), the movie honors this new experience at every turn, treating these new feelings with consideration that makes this development feel genuine and sweet rather than a dramatic plot point, as it might have been treated in other works, especially when regarding the early 2000’s widespread homophobia.
Independent Film Company
As delicate and lyrical as the tinkling Hamilton Leithauser piano score that flits in and out across its runtime, Mouse stands out as one of the most enveloping coming-of-age stories in recent memory, and one of the best American movies of 2026. With thoroughly moving performances and a meticulous screenplay, the film packs a lasting emotional punch that belies the skittish nature of the creature that inspired its name. Despite its small splash on the fall film festival circuit, Mouse recently received a Gotham Award nomination for Best Feature, recognition that will hopefully bolster its box office prospects as it makes its way into theaters nationwide, for this is a movie that is easy to fall in love with, as many audiences undoubtedly will.
4/5
‘Mouse’ world premiered at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival. The movie continues its nationwide rollout this Friday, November 13, courtesy of Independent Film Company. Click here to learn more about ‘Mouse’.