Anniversary review
By Joel Humphries · Watched 10.29.25
★½ 1.5 / 5
Spoiler-free review
Anniversary combines an upper-middle-class family drama, a fascist takeover and a political allegory that refuses to admit it has politics, then hides behind ambiguity when those elements demand a point of view. The excellent cast delivers the minimum such talent guarantees, but the screenplay’s effort to offend nobody makes its world feel inauthentic and its warning incoherent. A story about political extremism needs to identify what its characters believe, not leave an empty shape for every partisan to fill with a favorite enemy. This becomes a parable about fascists taking over bland suburbia, apparently written for filmmakers who never decided why.
Full review — contains spoilers
What a mess. It was well acted, sure. But that's the minimum you should expect from a cast like this. But the movie itself? A confused mess.
The writers are trying to mash together an upper-middle-class family drama, a fascist takeover story, and a political allegory that refuses to admit it has politics. It wants to be about everything and ends up about nothing.
It’s impossible to make this movie without offending someone, but instead of taking a stance, it just hides behind ambiguity and tone-deaf symbolism. Basically, this is a warning about a fascist takeover of milquetoast suburban basic b*tches.
If you want to make this film, take a political stand. Make it a takeover of crazy Trumpy people or radical leftists. There was no need to try to sit the fence. Obviously political partisans will read their fever dreams into this either way. But the point of taking a stand is that your narrative will make more sense, it's not that you'll have a certain set of political partisans flocking to see it. This story just felt inauthentic and disconnected all the way through.
Who is this for, exactly? I’m not sure even the filmmakers know, but not me for sure.