Panic Fest 2025 Review: THE HEDONIST Confirms a Distinct New Voice

I didn't formally review writer/director/actor Nick Funess's first feature Young Blondes, Stalked and Murdered at last year's Panic Fest, but my two-sentence lLetterboxd review gives a sense of how excited I was about it. I wrote "Nick Funess has the juice. Love when something an hour long wows you." And with The Hedonist, Funess continues to prove he has the proverbial juice.

The film's premise, that a young man moves in with his parents and hires an escort to take care of him after a nervous breakdown, could easily lead into a rote "sex worker falls for client" wish fulfillment story, but Funess isn't interested in retreading existing narratives. He actually doesn't seem too interested in narratives at all.

The Hedonist is more slice of life comedy than anything else; even calling it a coming of age movie would promise more of an arc than what's here. It's just a glimpse into the life of this 27-year-old individual as he has a quarter-life crisis, a crisis that isn't necessarily over when the film is over.

The cold open shows Reed (Funess) at his office assistant job: stocking the fridge, calling the cops on a homeless person, and growing increasingly agitated about people leaving their dishes next to, rather than in, the sink. It's a bleak existence that anyone would want to escape.

But the movie doesn't entirely place us on Reed's side either. After he hires sex worker Tess (Izzi Rojas), whose transness and use of they/them pronouns is remarkably unremarked upon, the two have multiple conversations highlighting Reed's entitlement.

One of the best dialogues has Reed respond "forever" when Tess asks him how long he's taking a sabbatical for. Another has him casually say HIV essentially has a cure, before Tess reminds him that's only true if you have money.

It's a key balance that makes the film work. When Reed sets up a dinner with him, Tess, his ex, and her new boyfriend, we feel for him and for everyone else he's put into this nightmare situation. That the scene still manages to be funny is what makes the film shine.

With a few exceptions, the performances are stilted and monotone, offering an unreality similar to those presented in Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Unlike those films, where the style is immediately clear, though, it takes a moment with The Hedonist to realize that, no, these are not bad actors struggling to remember and convincingly recite lines, this is a choice. A choice that works especially well for Reed's mom (played by Funess's mom Marijane Funess), who delivers multiple guffaw-inducing line readings.

There's a pop culture savviness and willingness to make pitch-black jokes in the film that combine wonderfully with the stylized line reads. At one point, 9/11 is referred to as the time "those buildings got hit," another moment has Reed reference David Carradine's death as he explains wanting to try auto-erotic asphyxiation. But perhaps the pièce de résistance is Tess's detailed plot summary of Robocop, a movie they ostensibly can't remember the name of, that ends up being one of the most touching and funniest scenes in the movie.

Not to be outdone by the performances, the film's aesthetic is also highly stylized. Most of it has a jaundiced look that's only made more overwhelming by the many yellow-painted walls and light brown doors and cabinets in Reed's parents' house.

A club scene is explicably lit in a deep red hue, while the scene of sexual experimentation back at the house that immediately follows it is inexplicably dowsed in the same, if not harsher, red light. The colored lighting only takes a step back in an extended outdoor hiking scene (Reed's parents live in suburban Arizona), where cinematographer Coco Leroux allows the natural brightness and reflective surfaces of the desert to do some more natural work for visual severity.

The majority of scene transitions are regular cuts, but different wipes are thrown in at random to keep viewers on their toes. Similarly, a motif of fake skies, in doctor's office artwork and wall tapestries, establishes itself so firmly that when a shot pans down from the real sky, it's jarring.

There's a layered sense of play, melancholy and almost dangerous uncertainty throughout The Hedonist that works perfectly for this movie about a young man we sympathize with but wouldn't actually want to meet. It's a difficult and distinct tonal balancing act that builds on the promise of his first feature and only makes me more excited to see whatever Funess does next.

Visit the film's page at the official festival site for more information.