Tribeca 2025 Review: ON A STRING, Sharp Comedy About Struggling Musicians

A man on his knees proposes to a woman in a park while someone plays Chopin in the background. It's a classic romantic movie moment, only On a String will carefully and calmly subvert every expectation it raises.

First, the woman turns her supplicant down. Next, the movies switches the focus to the musician behind them, Isabel, played by writer and director Isabel Hagen. And while she appears to be performing on a violin, it's actually a viola, a bigger, less familiar instrument.

A Julliard-trained musician who still lives with her parents, Isabel is on the cusp of failure. She scrapes by in a string quartet that plays at weddings, funerals, and fund-raising benefits. But prospects for steady work look dim. Plus, she's haunted by the realization that her brother Owen, a pianist, is likely the better musician in the family. (Owen, Hagen's real-life brother, adds an intriguing twist to family dynamics.)

After dumping a loser boyfriend in front of her parents, Isabel tells her best friend Christina (Ling Ling Huang), the quartet's lead violinist, that she's meeting Dave (John Kroner), a successful but self-absorbed cellist, for a date.

A classic narcissist, Dave slurps soup while studiously ignoring Isabel's attempts to seduce him. Asked if he's happy, he replies, "I want to kill myself two percent less." But he does encourage Isabel to audition for the Philharmonic. And he finds her a studio gig scoring an independent movie.

The studio session consists of a septet of string musicians struggling vainly to meet the director's (Eric Bogosian) inexplicable demands. Hagen stages this brilliantly, with Bogosian gesticulating wildly but silently through the control room window while the musicians shoot bewildered glances at each other.

Just as good are scenes where Isabel rehearses with alternative musician "Vybe" (Charlotte Ray Rosenberg). Hagen has an uncanny grasp of pretentious art, but her takes never seem nasty or gratuitous. Instead, her film seems to understand and even respect work that is not quite good enough.

Because Isabel's in the same boat herself. She sees her family wincing at her mistakes when she plays her audition piece for them. She has to take jobs tutoring children, even though she knows it means the dads will hit on her. And she doesn't have time to stop playing, even though it's damaging her wrist.

Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hagen's debut feature is an assured comedy that tackles difficult topics with grace and insight. A comedian and musician in real life, Hagen has a reserved visual style that complements her unforced acting.

Hagen fills the film with generous helpings of music, most of it played live by talented performers. Mozart and Schumann alternate with moody pop and a sensationally bad love song delivered by a wannabe folkie. Which Hagen then turns around with a wonderful performance of the same tune over the closing credits.

On a String paints a convincing picture of an unforgiving New York where everyone is a judge and no one is very happy. No one wants to leave, either, because another chance may be just around the corner.

Like Sofia in Paula Andrea González-Nasser's The Scout, also playing at Tribeca, Isabel is a surprisingly sympathetic surrogate into a cunningly realized world. That's because Isabel Hagen is a genuinely talented filmmaker.

The film enjoys its world premiere at Tribeca Festival 2025. Visit its official page for more information.