Tribeca Festival 2025 #3: Re-Creation, Nobu, A Tree Fell in the Woods
Our Tribeca coverage concludes.
The 2025 Tribeca Film Festival has come to close, which means its time to round-out our coverage. As always, I wish I could have seen and covered more. But there’s always next year!
Many thanks to the folks at Tribeca for another engaging and powerful fest.
Re-Creation
The 1996 murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan Du Plantier at her vacation home in West Cork is one of Ireland’s most shocking unsolved crimes. British journalist Ian Bailey was investigated by Irish authorities but never faced trial in Ireland, despite the fact he was tried and convicted in absentia by the French government. The film brings us into the room as a fictional jury sifts through the facts of the case, the inconsistencies in the various stories and the inconvenient truths that make the case so vexing.
Let’s get this out of the way: Re-Creation is a 12 Angry Men ripoff. You could call it an homage, but I don’t think homage typically goes beat for structural beat. It’s a jury deliberation drama where one juror (Vicky Krieps, best known for her roles in PTA’s Phantom Thread and M. Night’s Old) questions the defendant’s guilt that seems so obvious to everyone else. Slowly, through reasonable doubt, she wears down (this is not a spoiler, it’s just 12 Angry Men) even the most skeptical.
The bend this time is that the film imagines what a real-life case would be like. While an actual 1996 murder never went to trial, the film imagines what it would be like if it did. Co-director Jim Sheridan, best known for other films about honest, hard-working Irish folk, like My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, who also co-stars, is no stranger to this kind of story. There's a curiosity there, naturally, but there's also a sincerity and a commitment. It's an interesting and unusual angle for the true crime genre, one that elevates the dramatization to actual cinema.
But I just can't get over the shades of 12 Angry Men. On this site alone, I've reviewed the original film, the television remake, and an indie homage that wore its inspiration on its sleeve. I've seen the play performed live four times, including a production I consider to be definitive. I feel like it's been done. I find it peculiar to take such an interesting approach to the true crime documentary and such a tried-and-true approach to the crime film. Those two decisions seem at odds with each other.
Nobu
Years before his name became synonymous with a global luxury dining empire, Nobu Matsuhisa was a young man in Japan with a dream: to become a sushi chef. Directed and produced by Matt Tyrnauer, this compelling documentary traces Nobu’s journey from his childhood in Japan to the transformative experiences that shaped him in Peru and Alaska, ultimately leading to the creation of his iconic restaurants, Matsuhisa and Nobu.
I went into the documentary Nobu expecting to learn something about the principles of Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, the story of how he built his empire, and the effect his food and his restaurants have had on the rest of the culinary world.
Perhaps that was asking too much. What I got instead was a two-hour commercial for Nobu, with only brief glimpses at the man and his motives. Often featuring his founding partner Robert De Niro, co-founder of the Tribeca Festival, it doesn't do much more than say, "Yes, Nobu is as good as you've heard it is." Yes, Nobu Matsuhisa had a childhood. Yes, he had failed restaurants. Yes, he takes it really seriously. Yes, it's an edible empire. Is there more to know?
One scene gives us a glimpse at Nobu the mastermind, a moment where he visits one of his 56 locations. In the scene, Nobu makes the location's chef, who we can only imagine is a world-class chef in his own right, meticulously work and re-work a dish until he gets it exactly to his standards. If a note is not taken, Nobu is sure to remind him exactly how he would do it. That's interesting! A man, completely a master of his domain, at work. But it's not long before Cindy Crawford shows up and hawks her favorite menu item, the one, naturally, nicknamed after her.
I needed answers. So I went to Nobu.
During my meal at the D.C. location, I ate the signature Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna and wondered aloud, "Did Nobu himself decide this should be served on three picks? Why not two? Why not four?" Surely there's a method to his madness, but his "tell-all" documentary didn't share any secrets. My waitress recommended the hand roll, which Canada's Nuvo Magazine labeled "ascendant," and while it was delicious and fresh and probably one of the better hand rolls I've ever had, I wondered what exactly about it was so powerful. Perhaps the documentary could've enlightened me.
Oh well. We still have Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which remains the undefeated food-as-art-as-life documentary.
A Tree Fell in the Woods
Mitch and Debs are childhood friends who go on a New Year’s Eve trip to a cabin in the woods with their respective spouses, but things are clearly not all great for both couples. As the titular tree falls, nearly killing Mitch and Debs, things are seen that were not meant to be seen and truth-telling enters the picture when an unidentifiable and slightly psychedelic drink is drunk in this entertaining dramedy about the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves and how to untangle them all.
A Tree Fell in the Woods is the kind of film that's become a Tribeca staple, a small-budget indie featuring recognizable faces doing what they do best. At that, it succeeds.
Mitch (Josh Gad, who once asked me where the bathrooms were at the Kennedy Center) and Debs (Alexandra Daddario) are longtime friends who tolerate each other's spouses. The problem is that they are all painfully aware of everyone's worst habits, including their own, but no one has the guts to say anything. That is, until something goes down with Melanie and Josh (Ashley Park and Daveed Diggs) and the booze starts flowing and the truth comes out. It's the stuff indies are built on.
Approximately 75% of the cast have extensive stage resumes - Gad opened The Book of Mormon on Broadway, Diggs was in the original company of Hamilton, and Park was Broadway's Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls; I'm reminded of when Daddario said, "Sometimes I’m lit poorly, but I’m not a bad actress..." - and that spontaneity and electricity and in-the-moment twists and turns are evident in writer-director Nora Kirkpatrick's feature film directorial debut. It's funny and it's silly, it's dark and occasionally gasp-inducing. If you like the kinds of movies that Tribeca programs, you'll like this one when it is released wide.
Media courtesy of Tribeca Festival.