Writer-director Jesse Eisenberg (A REAL PAIN) returns to our screens with a mis-cast and beyond obvious musical comedy. Julianne Moore stars as a bored housewife who, quelle surprise, finds community and self-confidence through her local theatre troupe. So, so, so trite. Her road to self-knowledge comes via Paul Giamatti's theatre director. In a tour-de-force scene, worth the price of admission alone, he forces her to really channel her character of the building janitor to the point that she turns from shy mouse into shouting desperate working-class woman. The audience I watched this with burst into spontaneous applause.
Unfortunately, that's the high point of the film. Thereafter, Eisenberg takes the character into increasingly laughable and absurdist territory, as she moves into a dodgy room-for-the-night roach motel as she completely inhabits her role. We end up with a fright-wig and crazy make-up. Not that an absurdist comedy couldn't have worked. But I don't think Julianne Moore is the woman for that role. Just imagine Lisa Kudrow in the part and weep for what could have been. Overall, I am just surprised that after the layered, complicated depth of A REAL PAIN, this is where Eisenberg would choose to go next. It just feels so... slight.
THE DEBUT is rated R and has a running time of 1hr 45m. It played Telluride and Toronto 2026. It opens in the USA on December 11th 2026 and in the UK on January 15th 2027.
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