Trigger Warning: While no depiction is provided, a school shooting is a key character element within the film.
A lot can happen in a day. Regardless of time and place, you can find the entire trajectory of your existence shifted, leaving you forever changed in the process. That’s more or less the expectation for any “one crazy day” cinematic adventure from new generation tales such as rom-com The 4:30 Movie (2024), workplace comedy Paradise Records (2025), buddy comedy One of Them Days (2025), or classics, like late night romp After Hours (1985) and teen comedy House Party (1990). There’s magic in a “one crazy day” story in that anything is possible as our hero handles obstacle after obstacle, revealing who they are and what matters to them. The latest to join this particular club of tales is Cotton Candy Bubble Gum (2025) from writer/director J Pinder (The Morning After), providing a unique and generation-specific perspective that isn’t afraid to get serious amid the expected hijinks.
L-R: Morgan Jay as Angel and Nick Darnell as Carter in COTTON CANDY BUBBLE GUM. Photo courtesy of Radial Entertainment & Formosa House.
Twenty-one-year-old Carter (Nick Darnell) is having a shit day. No sooner has he learned that his mother, Dolores (Mildred Marie Langford), is newly engaged to boyfriend Randy (Rodney J. Hobbs), he also learns that he’s being kicked out. Adding insult to injury, his current gig is as an unpaid intern for high-profile photographer Jason (Ben Scattone). But today presents an opportunity, if Carter can find the stones to pursue it, as Jason is in dire need of a new assistant and today is his birthday. If Carter can complete all the tasks on Jason’s list, there’s a chance that he can get the gig and*maybe* afford to rent his mom’s guest house. Carter is going to have to make every second count, but, with “help” from his buddy Angel (Morgan Jay), Carter’s going to experience a day that will push him well beyond his comfort zone.
From the outside, Pinder has crafted a film that general audiences can dive right into. It’s got a protagonist on his back foot, wild circumstances to endure/survive, and the chance for redemptive action. Like other “one crazy day” tales, it utilizes misunderstandings, interpersonal troubles, influence-meddling materials, and other tools of the subgenre in order to make Carter’s life as difficult as possible. Where things grow specific and, therefore, more unique, is the spin that Pinder puts on the expectations of the beats. For instance, Carter’s world is that of Los Angeles in the music scene with Jason working with long-time collaborator hip hop artist Capital Gainz (R. Marcus Taylor). There’s already a hustle culture within Gen Z carried over from Millennials and Gen X (inspired by their largely Boomer parents), so the fact that Carter is working an unpaid gig isn’t particularly unique. Rather, it’s the fact that Carter is entirely stunted and fearful of growing up, getting a job, and moving out. Impressively, through the course of the film, we come to realize that just about everyone touched by Carter’s wild day out is struggling similarly, they just hide it in a more socially-acceptable manner. Angel is a hustler through and through (played with boyish charm by Jay, which is remarkable considering the choices of the character), while Jason is unable to see past his own desires (Scattone’s performance making him the sort of infantile boss of one’s nightmares). We even come to find that the successful rapper-cum-businessman Capital Gainz doesn’t have everything as wired as one expects from the outside through a surprising delicate depth given by Taylor (Baby Driver). Most impressively, Pinder utilizes the frustratingly normalized event of a school shooting (understatement of a lifetime) as both a character element and a bonding event for Carter and possible love interest Brooklyn (JadaPaige).
Center: R. Marcus Taylor as Capital Gainz in COTTON CANDY BUBBLE GUM. Photo courtesy of Radial Entertainment & Formosa House.
Making Carter a school shooting survivor does a few unexpected things for Cotton Candy Bubble Gum. The first is that it affords Pinder, as the storyteller, the means of making manifest a reason for Carter’s perpetual heightened state of anxiety. The film doesn’t seek or even try to parse the depth of Carter’s trauma so much as implant the notion that much of his anxiety comes from a sensation of being unsafe. Where other films might use Carter’s need to chew bubble gum as a regulation or grounding tool for comic relief, Pinder’s writing and Darnell’s performance create a character who is at peace with this part of himself, even if the rest is an absolute mess. Fascinatingly, as shown by Darnell’s performance, Carter is a character driven by empathy, offering his own gum up to anyone whenever he sees them stressing out, even if it means having less himself, turning his own tools into olive branches for others to bolster connection. Second, the lone joke Pinder makes about the shooting is the repeated comment that Carter makes regarding his head injury — it was self-inflicted by accident. It’s a choice that demonstrates Carter as someone who’s not so proud as to acknowledge his own foibles, but also that he’s not going to misrepresent himself regardless of the sympathy or adoration it may lose him. Finally, and this is the part that feels the most bold about the story, is that even though only one other character makes mention of having survived a shooting, the fact that this is something two young adults could casually joke about (dark humor is a great cover for trauma) speaks to the larger issue of normalization that’s occurred in American society. In my youth, one summer at camp, I traded stories with my fellow campers about scars and injuries, each one of us not trying to outdo the other so much as “you won’t believe this”-type of sharing. These were fairly basic injuries and, yet, that’s how Carter and Brooklyn discuss their own, with a blasé attitude that subverts the severity of what happened. This is how we fail our children, by making it normal instead of preventing it from happening. Cotton Candy Bubble Gum doesn’t explore this in the slightest; rather, the film uses the event to realize, for the audience, the foundation of the closeness between Carter and Dolores as Pinder slowly gives us a full picture of what occurred all those years ago.
Even when Cotton Candy Bubble Gum gets a little transgressive in the way it prioritizes errands over individual safety (a choice that reduces the initial intensity and hampers the humor), there’s still a lot that makes the film, well, pop. As though channeling Chris Tucker (Friday; The Fifth Element), Darnell (How I Learned to Fly) infuses Carter with a grounded-yet-unleashed sensation so that any elevated reactions come off as comedic whether dealing with a pain-in-the-ass spice seller or his greedy buddy. Likewise, JadaPaige (Momma Said Come Home for Christmas) transforms the potential one-note influencer/model Brooklyn into a fully-realized character who audiences want more of through her display of confidence and control, which defy the initial characterization. Neither Darnell nor JadaPaige have a long resume, but their chemistry and energy suggests that each are only just beginning with a promising future. In supporting roles, Taylor, Langford (Everyone Loves Mel), and Jack Stone as Jason’s teenage son Nate, each get their moments to shine, helping to ensure that this world is grounded enough and strange enough for audiences to believe things could get so out of hand without permanent negative repercussions.
L-R: Jack Stone as Nate, Morgan Jay as Angel, Nick Darnell as Carter, and JadaPaige as Brooklyn in COTTON CANDY BUBBLE GUM. Photo courtesy of Radial Entertainment & Formosa House.
Like the sugary sweet bubble gum Carter centers himself with, Pinder’s adventure never sours, even when you think the flavor’s going to run out from one too many outlandish impediments. What helps is that Pinder never forgets the heart at the center of the story, demonstrated by the handling of the inevitable confrontation that this genre requires. Things are pushed to a point where anything is possible, yet Pinder doesn’t fly off with the possibilities, opting to keep things respectively small, enabling audiences to stay locked in. Only time will tell what kind of legs Cotton Candy Bubble Gum has, but it’s a welcome addition to a subgenre that’s at its best when it remembers that heart matters more than hilarity.
Available on VOD and digital May 12th, 2026.
For more information, head to the official Formosa House Cotton Candy Bubble Gum webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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