Summer Phoenix and Grace Van Dien star as mother and daughter in What Comes Around (original title: Roost), the indie thriller film where a menacing game of cat and mouse ensues once a mother discovers the daughter is seduced online by an older man.

Also starring in the movie are Jesse Garcia, Kyle Gallner, Indiana Affleck, Reina Hardesty and Sierra Nicole Rose.

The film is based upon the play The Thing With Feathers by Scott Organ, who also wrote the screenplay.

Release Date

Directed by Amy Redford (daughter of actor/director Robert Redford), What Comes Around world premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and will open in theaters on August 4th.

Synopsis

A teenager and her cellphone. It’s a worrying combination for many parents, and when Anna (Grace Van Dien) tells her mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), that she’s met a boy online, Beth goes on full alert. It turns out Anna’s new crush is not a boy but a man — 28 years old, and saying all the right things to a girl on the verge of 17 as she cradles her phone in her bedroom. Then, without invitation, there he is, on the family’s doorstep.

Amy Redford’s Roost has a terrific starting premise, drawn from the experiences and anxieties of so many families. But it twists beyond that to take the film into territory that’s both thriller and thoughtful moral drama. The familiar conflicts between a mother and her adolescent daughter get ever more complicated by the presence of Anna’s boyfriend Eric (Kyle Gallner), who seems nice but is disturbingly persistent. Beth, a single mother, may need to call on her fiancé, Tim (Jesse Garcia), a cop. [via TIFF]

Reviews

In their review, Variety called the film, “A humdrum thriller that clumsily digs into themes of sexual and emotional trauma, Amy Redford’s sophomore feature “Roost” follows Anna (Grace Van Dien), an archetypal perceptive teenage girl on the cusp of maturity. Because she’s the observant kind who yearns for big ideas and possibilities outside of her small suburban world, it’s no surprise that it isn’t a square teenage boy from her school that romantically sweeps Anna off her feet, but a man of nearly 30 years of age she’s met online.”

Official Trailer

Watch the official trailer for What Comes Around.