Social mores dictate that a person is born, grows up, pairs off, has children, and then dies. In between is a life-lived that can be often defined by the stage one is in rather than the person they are. If they’re single, they’re defined by the relationship to come. If they’re dating, then it’s marriage. How often are there jokes about newly-weds being asked when the first child is coming during the reception? Then, upon arrival, who you are is defined by the children you have and their successes and failures. Somewhere along the way, as new memes and long-standing jokes would tell it, partnerships in marriage turn sour where neither party really wants to be with the other but puts up with it because they’re married. But why? This is the question that drives writer/director Sherise Dorf in her feature-length debut, the romantic dramedy The Everything Pot, which is having its world premiere during Tribeca Film Festival 2024. Anchored by a gifted cast, Dorf’s The Everything Pot explores complacency and parenthood as a replacement for active partnership and the notion that life doesn’t stop when you put a ring on it.
At the same time that empty nesters Rachel and Adam (Lisa Edelstein and Erik Griffin, respectively) are dealing with their daughter, Penelope (Deja Monique Cruz), heading off to college, Charlie and Claire (James Wolk and Delaney Rowe, respectively) are locking down their wedding guest list across town. When Charlie decides to add Rachel to the list, he unwittingly kicks off a series of events that will force both couples to address issues they’ve refused to confront.
The simplest way to describe The Everything Pot is as a romantic scruples comedy, wherein the act of breaking a social norm (or being perceived as doing so) is the inciting incident for all that follows. In the case of the film, Dorf pulls from her own experience (according to the press notes) in wondering why it is that she made several choices similar to those Rachel makes before ultimately spinning those questions out into the story set before us. The choice of making the film about two couples at disparate yet significant developmental moments is a smart one as it enables the small things to come off as larger as emotions are already running high. For Rachel, there’s the complex feelings of her child being gone, recognizing something’s off with Adam, and the notion that her life is over; conversely, for Charlie, life is mostly at its beginning with him about to take a new big step in adulthood while still being unable to let go of things from his past. These seem like two ideas at odds with one another, but the way that Dorf causes them to collide is at once natural and heightened, thereby creating several relatable and cringe-worthy moments of soft comedy which gather tension until they explode. The explosion, though, doesn’t come how or where one may expect, and this is what makes the film itself fascinating as an exploration of relationships, communication, and the perception of self.
L-R: Lisa Edelstein as Rachel and James Wolk as Charlie in THE EVERYTHING POT. Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
Dorf gives the audience four primary characters to follow, with support from Cruz as the college-bound daughter and Gina Torres (Firefly; Suits) as neighbor/former boss Gail. Each character is at a specific point in their lives and each one has a role in this cinematic play. Dorf gives us Rachel (executed beautifully by Edelstein), a woman who’s perhaps not used to being herself now without a child for the first time in 18 years, and it’s Rachel who serves as the primary character through which the entire narrative flows. Edelstein goes all-in on Rachel, resulting in a grounded performance so that every action by Rachel turns into something the audience and the other characters can chew on: is Rachel a provocateur or is she just so out of sorts that she doesn’t know what the rules are anymore? Does intention matter anymore when the delivery comes garbled? Or, worse, what does it matter when we don’t know what our intentions are? This combined with Wolk’s charming performance as Charlie, another character in flux but differently, leads one to realize that communication breakdowns make all the difference between joyful unions and broken relationships. That said, what’s fascinating is how Dorf wants us to focus on Rachel and Charlie, when it’s Adam and Claire who are more critical to the outcome than the ones who instigate the continued troubles, intentionally or otherwise. Claire’s reaction to Charlie’s desire to invite Rachel, Adam’s reactions to near everything Rachel does, these things create a response within the audience of either critical defiance or humorous care as the devoted partners who may or may not be wrong. Perhaps it’s because Rachel seems annoyed by her husband’s snoring (something which should not be a shock at this point) as though he’s uncouth in some way, an irritant to be placated or ignored, that one almost wants to reach out and protect Adam; perhaps it’s because Rowe makes Claire appear immediately confrontational and distrustful rather than curious or supportive that we want to rip her down. But, in both instances, Dorf is placing these two before us as if to challenge society’s ideas of what we expect a relationship to look like and why is it one person receives a negative response while we want to protect the other? Through the film, culpability is spread fairly evenly; yet it’s something that Dorf sneaks in rather than proclaims outright. A mixture of a strong script and dialed-in performances culminate in a film that gets you thinking about the way we look at our partners, and keeps you thinking well past the credits.
There’s something so strange about the ease by which one member of a couple will make fun of or belittle a partner. One doesn’t have to go far on social media to find a joke of some kind in which dating or married individuals joke about their “ball and chain,” whether it’s through self-effacing humor or targeting their partner directly. How exhausting it must be to have aligned yourself with someone who you may, for better or worse, not even like. Maybe you did when you first dated, chalking certain behaviors or vocalizations as cute or quirky, but then time turned those same cute things into engorging frustrations (that’s what she said). As someone who’ll have been with their partner for 20 years come January 2025, I can’t imagine constantly bagging on my wife like folks do online. Is it weird to like your wife? Is it weird want her to succeed, to be her best self, to encourage her to do things that she likes or maybe has always wanted to try? Folks, is it weird to exist in a relationship absent judgement where fighting happens, but resentment never takes hold? Why-o-why is the “old fighting married couple” the ideal? Why are the snipes and barbs ok in society, when it should be that self-reflection, self-care, and communal support as a team are the things that we should strive for? As each of the primary four characters are challenged in The Everything Pot, Dorf asks the audience to (re)evaluate their own view of themselves, their partners, and whether or not they’re taking an active role in making it work. This is a mature film asking important questions, using humor as the guiding sttar through a series of absolutely cringe-worthy moments. But life is messy and complicated, as are people. If you’re lucky, if having a partner is your thing, then you’ll find one worth doing the work for every day.
Seriously, when did it become weird to love your partner? (Society is weird, y’all.)
To her credit, Dorf doesn’t seem to take a stance on relationships on the whole, but allows the characters and their reactions speak for themselves. Communication is critical to maintaining a lasting relationship and it takes work. Not “clock in 9-5” work, but checked-in, rolling up your sleeves, recognizing the other person in your life *as* a person. It can be hard with children, siblings, parents, friends, and all the other things that can get in the way of remembering why you partnered with someone to begin with. It can be funny to see people on screen struggle, but it’s less so in person. In the parlance of my people, The Everything Pot is a bunch of mishegaas, a much ado made over nothing, and yet there’s plenty to glean from it.
Screening during Tribeca Film Festival 2024.
For more information, head to the official Tribeca 2024 The Everything Pot webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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