Tribeca 2025 Review: DRAGONFLY, Powerful Psychological Drama About Desperately Seeking Connection

Elsie (Brenda Blethyn) is an elderly woman living by herself in the house she used to share with her late husband. She is relying on, well, not so much the kindness of strangers, but the perfunctory services of the nurses the agency her son (Jason Watkins) has hired sends over three times a week. Her younger neighbor, Colleen (Andrea Riseborough), takes issue with how these services are provided and starts helping out, gaining Elsie’s trust and friendship.

Colleen leads an even more isolated life, with only her dog for companionship, and generally seems to be at odds with the outside world. The friendship developing between two women turns out soothing for both of them, but outside of their bubble, not everyone is happy about the situation, and the tragedy looms over the two households.

Last year, Tribeca Festival had Restless – a film about a complex interpersonal dynamic between neighbors, where a young man with a penchant for very loud partying tormented the woman next door, driving her to retaliate. Dragonfly, directed by Paul Andrew Williams, who is known for his work in both TV and film (his cult horror comedy, The Cottage, for instance), seemingly has a completely different set of characters, relationships, and issues to explore. However, the two features have more in common than meets the eye, as, like Restless, Williams’ movie examines the fragility of the human psyche and all the ways it can be easily shattered.

Williams goes even further here, since he almost doesn’t allow the characters or the audience the reprieve of humor, something he often relied on in some of his previous works. The blood is only shed at the very end of the film, yet you can feel the impending doom in the air, enhanced by the aesthetic choices the authors make.

Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn, two incredible powerhouses, carry a lot on their shoulders, making both women feel so grounded in reality that their anguish is sometimes painful to watch, which, of course, is the whole point.

Except for a few brief ventures outside, which usually involve Colleen buying groceries, the action is confined to the respective homes of the women and their shared yard. Thus, this space becomes the central arena for the emotional turmoil that dominates the story long before the suspense really starts.

The authors show both homes as something that can be both a sanctuary and a prison, with the space seemingly expanding and collapsing at will, while the camera is either acting detached, barely peeking at what’s happening with the women, or abruptly delivering uncomfortable close-ups of their faces in the moments of their rawest emotions.

While Dragonfly is being marketed as a drama/ thriller, it is also a particular kind of horror film, with the monster being the harrowing loneliness. Elsie and Colleen experience it differently, just like this state may take various forms in real life, from the humiliating realization that a person who sees you at your most vulnerable doesn’t even know your name, to a hysterical application of makeup to your face in a desperate attempt to feel even a tiniest bit better about yourself.

While cinema in general still tends to romanticize loneliness, Dragonfly shows it for what it is: a routine series of everyday, excruciating experiences that always build up to something that tends to be horrific, more often than not.

The film enjoys its world premiere at Tribeca Festival 2025.