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Apr 17, 2026 By Mark Moody Web Exclusive

Sophy Romvari’s debut feature deftly explores themes of loss and the vagaries of memory. Blue Heron uses Romvari’s earlier short film, Still Processing, as a jumping-off point to ponder what might have been. In the short, Romvari unpacks boxes of family photos and film that her parents forwarded to her when they were emotionally able to part with them. Two of Romvari’s older brothers had died a half-decade or more prior to the film’s release, and the rawness of the impact of seeing the family in more innocent times hits the viewer—and Romvari herself—particularly hard.

Flash forward another five years, and Romvari has assembled her family by proxy in Blue Heron. The youngest and only daughter, Sasha, is played by newcomer Eylul Guven. The film’s early focus is on the troubled eldest son, Jeremy, with Edik Beddoes in a strong debut role. The parents, who are credited simply as Mother and Father, are played by Iringó Reti and Ádám Tompa, respectively. Reti carries the fictitious family—and the film itself—on her back in key sequences. The middle two brothers are often on screen earlier in the film, but are primarily placeholders to fill out the headcount of Romvari’s own family.

At the beginning of the film, the family of Hungarian immigrants is moving into their new home on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The natural beauty of the environs is only enhanced by the summery, washed-out color palette Romvari operates in. A front-yard scene with a rainbow-hued selection of water balloons being assembled alongside a sprinkler particularly resonates. The mid- to late-’90s period of the film only adds to the nostalgic feel. Ron Popeil’s “set it and forget it” tagline plays in the background, and the kids are huddled around the TV watching a distinctly Canadian public service announcement about the “house hippo.” An early version of a personal computer is tucked in the corner of the family room and is where Father spends most of his time—a not-so-subtle reminder that being eternally online started some thirty years back.

Tensions between Jeremy and the rest of the family simmer quickly. He disappears on a beach outing, shoplifts (a keychain replica of the film’s title), and creates various levels of chaos around the house. Even in the sweetest moments with the other children, there is some level of defiance at play. A kitchen scene where Jeremy makes it “snow” while sifting sugar provides entertainment for the little ones but a mess for Mother to clean up later. As things escalate, Mother and Father bring in outside help. Reti shines in these moments of desperation; her excellent grasp of English falters when speaking with professionals. Her Hungarian accent becomes more pronounced under stress, and in the most dire moments, she reverts to speaking her native tongue. Father is of little help.

The tripling down of isolation for the family is stifling. Being an immigrant family creates its own inherent barriers, but then moving to a reasonably remote island takes things a level further. Prohibiting the children from having hard-to-acquire playmates come to their house only adds fuel to the fire. In one scene, Mother explains to Sasha that she should go to her friends’ homes instead of vice versa, given the “embarrassment” of having others observe Jeremy’s behavior. Childlike—since she is, in fact, a child—Sasha quietly protests that she’s not embarrassed. Jeremy is what he is in her eyes. Mother even unfairly asks Sasha at one point what they should do about her much older brother.

A little more than halfway through the film, things flip to the present day. The first hint given is an iPhone held by the adult Sasha, played by Amy Zimmer. That same switch to the present-day convention of the iPhone was used in last year’s The Secret Agent in a moment more necessary to direct the viewer to the change. Outside of an effort to remember, little is resolved in the first half of the film. This leaves the adult Sasha in the unenviable position of trying to figure out what went wrong with Jeremy. Romvari slyly has the adult Sasha play as filmmaker (clearly the proxy to herself), but also as social worker. As a filmmaker, Sasha interviews modern-day therapists to see if things could have retroactively been handled differently by her parents or herself—an unfairly hefty burden for a child, or an adult child for that matter. Not to mention what protocols may have changed over the years in between. Regardless, it’s an effort to understand.

Romvari does expertly mash past and present together in a unique way. Sasha’s voyage back to observe early goings-on is the most heartbreaking part of the picture, though it does provide tender moments of observation of her and her family’s past selves. Aside from the earlier hues of the film, these treads upon memories provide some of the film’s most emotionally fulfilling moments, as if the Romvari of Still Processing walked right into the photos themselves.

Blue Heron showcases what is inevitably an impossible situation for a child to figure out: how to fix your older brother, whether that was as it happened or in retrospect. Reti’s Mother character is put in a position where, whether she is inherently a strong person or not, she has to be strong for the sake of the family. In a brief scene near the end of the film, Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday is reflected off bathroom tiles. Rosalind Russell’s Hildy was no doubt a larger-than-life character and one able to hang with the tough newspaper guys. The emotionally in-tune Mother and adult Sasha aren’t cut from that same cloth, nor are most of us.

That Romvari puts Sasha in the situation of having to figure things out is a heartrending choice. Part of it may be simply an effort to solve a puzzle, á la fellow Canadian Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, but it’s the asking what could have been done differently that makes Blue Heron’s sometimes bitter pill a hard one to swallow. Somewhat ironically, the movie closes with a Daniel Johnston song playing over the credits—an artist who, given his childlike grasp on reality, likely never asked “why?” but just called it as he saw it. Romvari turns her questions over and over in her hands and gets at them from all different angles. What Blue Heron ultimately and tearfully shows, though, is that sometimes there just isn’t an answer to be had. (www.janusfilms.com)

Author rating: 8/10