Tribeca 2025 Review: THE TRAVEL COMPANION, The Unbearable Lightness of Being an Indie Filmmaker

The Travel Companion, a feature debut made by a creative duet of Alex Mallis and Travis Wood, continues to explore the topic that was prominent at last year’s Tribeca Festival (and showcased in such films as Adult Best Friends and Sacramento): what happens when growing up and getting older also means growing apart with the people you thought would be in your life forever? Wood’s and Mallis’ film has a twist – or a bonus – complementing this concept, though, as the authors take a long, hard look at the indie filmmaking scene and the people who inhabit it.

One of such people is Simon (Tristan Turner), a young filmmaker, who has already made his first movie that’s been shown at some festivals. But his second one – something about walls – has been marinating (his words) for a while now. Simon’s best friend and roommate, Bruce (Anthony Oberbeck), works for a major airline, with the great benefit of naming one person of his choosing as his “travel companion” every year, granting them the possibility to jet all over the world for free. This system has been working for Simon for years, but now, Bruce has a budding romance with Beatrice (Naomi Asa), who might want this perk for herself. To add insult to injury, at least in Simon’s eyes, Beatrice is also an independent filmmaker, who is slightly more assured about the path she is on and what she’s going to do next.

From the very first scene, where Simon and Beatrice participate in a painful Q&A session after their screenings (indie icon Joanna Arnow also makes an appearance here), The Travel Companion establishes the type of humor it’s going to employ throughout; much like that Q&A, it’s deadpan, bittersweet, and masterfully relies on the second-hand embarrassment. Another feeling in abundance, which the authors manage to turn into their artistic tool, is frustration, clearly based on a lot of personal experience.

That frustration is widespread, aiming for the specifics of the creative process and the state of the film industry that tends to be dejected from its independent segment. Most of all, though, it is aiming for the filmmakers themselves, who are prone to getting lost in their heads, snobbishly hating their day jobs, and talking excessively about the meaning of the things they haven’t created yet. While clearly having lots to say on the matter, the authors of The Travel Companion don’t always have the narrative “meat” to play around with, so at times, the film relies on the random, but telling moments of awkwardness: like a chance encounter Simon has with a film festival programmer, which is painful on both ends.

But loving satire isn’t the only thing Mallis and Wood are aiming for here. As previously mentioned, The Travel Companion is also an exploration of a deteriorating relationship. In most of these stories, at least one of the participants desperately tries to hold on to the status quo, no matter what. In this case, it’s Simon, and the notorious free flights he covets to the point of pettiness and absurdity represent his years-long friendship with Bruce, i.e., the only semblance of stability he has in his chaotic, filmmaker life – even if the whole tickets system, based on the stanby principle, is no less turbulent. 

This is the point where the two major themes come together in the movie, as the good old “my friend is moving on” trope is used here to emphasize Simon being stuck creatively, just watching the same footage over and over again. These motives additionally get entwined in the finale, which somehow manages to be both fantastical (sorry, there is no way that doc about walls is that good) and deeply rooted in the reality of the creative process. The idea that artistic breakthroughs can and tend to happen through not only traumatic experiences, but also throught acknowledging oneself being an utter asshole, might not be the most optimistic message. That doesn’t make it any less true.