‘Poetic License’ Review – A Competent, Lackluster Debut From Maude Apatow [TIFF 2025]

Of the several films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival featuring actors sitting in the director’s chair, Maude Apatow’s Poetic License was certainly the highlight. Written by Raffi Donatich, we follow Liz (Leslie Mann) as a professor’s wife who has just moved to a new town for her husband’s job. She decides to audit a poetry class at the university and quickly befriends Ari (Cooper Hoffman) and Sam (Andrew Barth Feldman), two lifelong best friends at the start of their senior year of college. As the semester hums along, the two young men compete for her attention.

I’m certainly a sucker for films set in schools, and this is no different. There’s something special about this time in someone’s life, should they have the opportunity to go to college. Your schedule is pretty inconsistent, unlike working a classic 9-5 job, which is what most degrees are trying to set you up for. I remember being paralyzed by decisions the first few months of my college experience, leading me to not make friends or join any clubs until later than I would have liked. 

Poetic License tackles this common feeling both through Mann’s Liz and her daughter Dora (Nico Parker), as well as through Ari and Sam. The former two are entering this period of life after moving to a new town where they don’t know a soul, while the latter pair are staring down the barrel of leaving this exquisite freedom they’ve become accustomed to. We see both sides of the spectrum play out in these relationships with surprising depth.

Mann is as good as ever, but Hoffman and Feldman are the stars of this vehicle. Their chemistry and comedic timing are perfect here, giving off the sense that they really have been best friends for years. Ari is framed as a richer, less obscene version of Jonah Hill from Superbad, while Sam is a loveable softie with an overbearing girlfriend. It’s important to nail Ari and Sam’s relationship early on because it makes it so much more impactful once you see them at odds with each other throughout the film. Similar to another Hoffman-led film from this year, The Long Walk, the movie doesn’t work without him and his dynamic with his co-stars. 

In regard to Apatow’s direction, it follows a similar trend of many first-time actors-turned-directors at TIFF. Apatow shows competency behind the camera, offering a solid debut that is inoffensive on basically every front. It’s impressive to do this in a debut, not making some mistakes that many first-time filmmakers do. Apatow’s filmmaking proficiency is clear, but there’s not much flair or notable style to see here. Hopefully, she can take this experience into her next project and feel the ability to take some more chances rather than playing things safe.

The film really only has two plot strands, but struggles to juggle them both well, leading to an almost two-hour runtime for a standard comedy. Liz’s family drama takes away from more time with Ari and Sam, and the movie really only works when a combination of those three is together. The same amount of plot from the other side of Liz’s life could be communicated in significantly less time, and make the pacing and flow of the film much smoother. 

Poetic License is a serviceable debut, seeing Maude Apatow in the director’s chair. Without Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman’s chemistry and comedic timing, though, there wouldn’t be much to write home about after seeing this film. They are the movie, and I hope it gets them a lot more work in the coming years. The movie suffers from pacing issues and juggling different plot threads, leading to a bloated runtime. Apatow shows some promise and is likely to get another shot at directing in the near future.

Poetic License held its World Premiere as part of the Special Presentations section at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

Director: Maude Apatow

Screenwriter: Raffi Donatich

Rated: NR

Runtime: 117m