There are few places more wonderful in the world than Central Park in New York City, and Good to See You (2025), the newest independent micro-feature from writer/director Jonah Feingold (At Midnight; EXmas) is on a mission to make sure you know that. Feingold and influencer Tess Tregellas (Here on Out; Midnight City) expand their online-sketch personas into a pair of love-lost New Yorkers who bump into each other in Central Park and can’t remember how they know each other, but Feingold’s pretty sure they dated.
Tess Tregellas in Jonah Feingold’s 2025 Romantic Comedy GOOD TO SEE YOU. Photo courtesy of Romantical.
The serendipity that can occur in Central Park is the lifeblood of the comedy and romance in equal parts. Walking the same way across the park, they argue about love, dating, and work. They hide behind trees, bump into exes, visit the penguins, and stare at statues. Not just a love letter to Central Park, the film wants you to think of classic New York rom-coms, as well, such as When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Crossing Delancey (1988). In the live-streamed director’s commentary, viewers asked Feingold about Linklater’s Before Trilogy (1995, 2004, 2013), a film that easily comes to mind. Instead, he pointed to the production model of the French New Wave, shooting on permit-free public streets with natural light and barebones audio, leaning on performance, and writing to create art that stands on its own as an experience, not a product.
“You’re the best”
There are many filmmakers and critics today who wax nostalgic for the union of independent production and the studio system from the 1990s, but filmmakers like Marrissa Maltz (Jazzy; The Unknown Country), Connor O’Malley (Rap World), Vera Drew (The People’s Joker), and others are finding success in replicating the New Wave model. This is the way through the disruption of production due to the COVID outbreak for many new voices as cameras like the Black Magic Pocket Cinema 4K and the Sony FX3 have fulfilled the promise of the mumblecore era. Oscar-winning films like Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) are shot on the same camera the local doofus on your dorm floor shoots his vlogs on. Or an independent, 40+-minute rom-com set in Central Park.
Jonah Feingold in his 2025 Romantic Comedy GOOD TO SEE YOU. Photo courtesy of Romantical.
Shoot it yourself, act in it if you have to, distribute it where you must, until you’ve proven yourself enough to investors and stakeholders to go bigger. While it’s never been harder for the professional filmmaker than the last five years, it’s never been easier for the amateur or individual artist to express themselves through cinema.
“You don’t remember how you know me?”
Easier as it may be, it’s still very hard. On a technical level, the film is nearly impeccable for a self-shot film in a public park, with just one moment where audio is muffled, the rest manages to come out clean and audible. Filming with one camera, a tripod, and lavalier mics, Feingold uses the hard concrete sidewalks or the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as bounce cards for fill light. The grade is light, vibrant, and warm, bearing the same look as Feingold’s one-off Instagram reels where he plays a proto-form of this hopeless romantic, pontificating about love and dating to a faceless and voiceless friend on the other side of his wired earbuds on the streets of New York. The liveliness of the New York street is essential to his oeuvre, and it shines in Good to See You with pedestrians crossing in front of camera, strangers getting pulled into playing roles, and the irreplaceable production quality of hundreds of “background performers” in Central Park going about their real lives. There’s a great moment in the live-stream commentary where Jonah realizes a passerby who’s in the film is watching the stream, and it speaks to the power for communal art that internet cinema can have. Central Park can be anywhere, and this film gets that.
Available to stream on YouTube beginning July 21st, 2025.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
Nice review! I really enjoyed this film! Is the director’s commentary actually still available to watch somewhere? Would love to hear it!