©Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival
The most endearing family dramas are often those that avert expectations. The unique stories explore themes of identity, belonging and the emotional bonds between parent and child as a tender character study. The new movie, Hot Water, is one such feature, as it grapples with the definition of home during a time of diaspora.
Award-winning Lebanese filmmaker, Ramzi Bashour, made his feature film writing and directorial debuts on the project. Lubna Azabal and Daniel Zolghadri play the main mother and son in the drama.
Hot Water follows Layal (Azabal), a Lebanese-born Arabic professor living in Indiana, as she faces mounting strain. She’s caring for her ailing mother from afar, navigating cultural dislocation and trying to raise her American-born teenage son on her own.
Layal’s circumstances grow more challenging when her son Daniel (Zolghadri) is expelled from school after a violent outburst. So she decides to drive him across the country to Santa Cruz to live with his father and finish high school.
The journey forces both of them into uncomfortable proximity. Layal, disciplined and tightly wound from years of sacrifice, struggles to understand her son’s casual American confidence and reckless behavior. Daniel, meanwhile, begins to glimpse the pressures and compromises that have shaped his mother’s life. As they travel west, their bickering gives way to moments of honesty, vulnerability and reluctant empathy.
Hot Water‘s greatest strength lies in its performances from its two main performers. Azabal delivers a performance of tightly coiled intelligence and bruised tenderness as Layal. The actress emphasizes how the professor is contending with multiple layers of stress. She recently quit smoking, is fielding anxious calls about her ailing mother in Beirut and outraged over David’s expulsion for a hockey-stick assault.
Azabal, who alternates between English, Arabic and French with regal impatience, conveys fierce love and exasperation in the smallest gestures. Her most distinctive movements include a glance over her sunglasses and a perfectly pitched “Oh, Daniel!”
Layal is perpetually harried, but flickers of wonder soften her severity. In quiet moments, the immigrant’s ambition and maternal protectiveness intertwine together.
Zolghadri matches his co-star beat for beat. The actor shows how Daniel is a volatile American teenager who’s cushioned by the privilege of nonchalance. The actor pivots seamlessly from sarcasm to vulnerability. As a result, he lets the façade of adolescent insolence slip just enough to reveal confusion and longing beneath.
The protagonists’ chemistry feels lived-in rather than performed. The unadorned two-shots highlight that connection, allowing their bond — from teasing affection to generational irritation and mutual respect — to play out in real time. The film never overplays the fractiousness; instead, it buries it beneath casual banter.
Bashour, who previously composed Max Walker-Silverman’s 2022 romantic drama, A Love Song, brough a similarly gentle musical sensibility to his own film. The score for Hot Water drifts in and out with unobtrusive lyricism. It mirrors the movie’s aversion to theatrics, instead cushioning moments of confrontation with wistful tonal washes.
Accompanying the drama’s expressive, melodic score is the soulful cinematography from Alfonso Herrera Salcedo. The Director of Photography captured the American landscape as an epic, emotional canvas. The camera lingers on such varied locations as snow-capped mountains and the flashy glow of the Vegas Strip. Salcedo highlighted the road movie’s iconography with luminous clarity through grandiose wide frames.
Along with highlighting the serenity of the country’s Midwest and West Coast, Hot Water‘s production designer, Juliana Barreto Barreto, leans into recognizable Americana. Layal and David bond while traveling across the U.S. They visit suc distinct places as motels with patterned bedspreads, roadside diners and gas stations suspended in heat shimmer.
Overall, Hot Water offers much more than the typical road movie. While its narrative treads familiar terrain — a mother and son forced into close quarters, struggling with their differences — it is the depth of their emotional journey, conveyed through remarkable performances and understated direction, that sets it apart.
Bashour’s gentle storytelling and subtle examination of identity, home and family dynamics elevate the film beyond its premise, allowing it to resonate deeply with viewers. With its impressive visual storytelling and a score that perfectly complements its themes, Hot Water is a quietly powerful examination into the ways people understand each other and themselves.
The drama doesn’t always go as deep as it hints at, but it leaves an impression with its authenticity. It’s a heartfelt tribute to both the distances families travel and the connections they must ultimately rebuild.
Overall: B+
Hot Water premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
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