‘Rhythm Is A Dancer’ Review – Not Enough Rhythm Or Dance [AFF 2025]

Lauren Caster’s Rhythm Is a Dancer is a film that clearly means well. It wants to be a quirky, heartfelt dramedy about connection, identity, and self-acceptance; the kind of small, human story that thrives on charm and emotional honesty. Unfortunately, it often mistakes awkwardness for humor and sentimentality for depth, leaving a film that’s sweet in spirit but frustratingly uneven in execution.

The movie opens with a clever enough setup: Ro, a dancer whose big break never came, auditions for a commercial promoting a yeast infection medication called Nzire. The scene perfectly sets the tone for the movie: awkward, mildly funny, and laced with the kind of embarrassment that makes you want to cringe and wince more than laugh. It’s a solid introduction to Ro’s character, who is a woman who can’t seem to catch a break, trapped in an endless cycle of disappointment. But as the film continues, that early energy begins to wane.

After the audition, we follow Ro through a party, a semi-promising relationship fizzles out afterwards, and eventually her getting fired from her job. When she listens to a voicemail confirming that her biological father has been located, the story shifts gears into a family dramedy about reconnection. This premise, which follows Ro finally meeting her father for the first time, holds real emotional potential. There’s room for vulnerability and healing. Yet, Caster never fully commits to exploring those emotions. Instead, she keeps the tone too light, as if afraid of letting the film get too messy or too uncomfortable.

When Ro begins working at her new job, the film introduces its most prominent supporting characters: a trio of outspoken elderly coworkers. These characters are meant to provide comic relief and wisdom, but their dialogue feels forced and unrealistic. Nearly every joke revolves around age: how old they are, how young Ro is, how “different things were back then.” It’s as if Caster’s only reference point for older people came from TV sitcoms. Their conversations are repetitive, their personalities blur together, and their constant self-deprecating jokes about mortality and nostalgia lose charm after the first few scenes.

What’s frustrating is that beneath the clichés, there’s genuine warmth in these relationships. You can sense that Caster wants to celebrate intergenerational connection and how people at different stages of life can learn from one another. In a few quieter moments, when the dialogue slows down and the humor fades, you can see glimpses of that intention. One scene, for example, where Ro helps one of the women dance again after years of immobility, captures a brief spark of authenticity. For a moment, the film transcends its sitcom rhythms and feels alive. But these flashes are fleeting.

The heart of the story should be the reunion between Ro and her father, Gregory, played by Tate Donovan. Their scenes together are among the film’s strongest; they are awkward but rooted in emotional curiosity. Yet even here, the writing stays surface level. Their conversations often circle around vague expressions of regret and forgiveness, without diving into the deeper emotional scars that such meetings would naturally carry. It’s as if the film keeps hovering above something meaningful but refuses to land.

Lauren Caster, pulling triple duty as writer, director, and star, clearly has talent and ambition. There’s sincerity in her performance as Ro, and you believe her exhaustion, her confusion, and her longing for something real. Her direction, too, shows glimpses of personality, particularly in how she frames moments of solitude. But her screenplay is what holds the film back. The humor rarely lands, the pacing drags in the middle, and the emotional beats are predictable. 

Still, Rhythm Is a Dancer isn’t without its redeeming qualities. There’s undeniable heart here, and the film’s wholesome tone may resonate with viewers looking for a comforting, low-stakes story. Caster is still finding her voice as a filmmaker, and that’s okay. There are enough flashes of sincerity to suggest that with time and a stronger script, she could deliver something truly special.

But as it stands, Rhythm Is a Dancer feels too much like a first draft and a movie with good intentions as well as an empathetic core, but one that mistakes quirkiness for authenticity. Its humor feels rehearsed, its characters one-note, and its emotional arcs too “neat” and familiar. There’s something admirable about how much heart Caster puts into the project, but it’s not enough to make up for how shallow it ultimately feels.

Rhythm Is a Dancer had its World Premiere at the 2025 Austin Film Festival. 

Director: Lauren Caster

Writer: Lauren Caster

Rated: NR

Runtime: 93m