General Admission world première at Tribeca, 5 June 2026
Sometimes a first step towards new beginnings is also a stagger. Just out of a long-term relationship after catching her boyfriend cheating on her, heartbroken Kelly (Nina Dobrev) is still struggling through her conflicted feelings about him and her persistent sense of co-dependency. Yet she is also a scatty hot mess – and while she has taken that difficult step to improve herself and seek advice from others with similar experience of compulsive behaviours, she literally tumbles, in a grandly gauche entry, into her first open group counselling session, and then proceeds to overshare with a vengeance.
It is hard to know which is worse: the cringily intimate details that come gushing out of Kelly’s mouth into this room of complete strangers, or the goofily irrelevant digressions. Once the floodgates are open, it is all just too much information. Still, surrounded by listeners as damaged and desperate as she is for community, empathy and healing, at least she is in the right place at the right time. Or is she?
Kaily Morgan Smith’s short film General Admission, written by Sarah Adina, finds sophisticated comedy (of errors) in romantic collapse and recovery, and in the vulnerabilities and flaws that make us who we are. There is an excellent ensemble cast (including Cedric Yarbrough, Adam Shapiro, Sarah Baker, Henderson Wade, Geo Lee, Bunny Klein Gibson and Marita de Lara) of characters who are all, for the moment, a captive audience stuck in Kelly’s intense, irresistible orbit – but this is Dobrev’s show, as her hapless heroine takes centre stage and undergoes a mortifyingly meteoric crash and burn. Still, at least Kelly puts herself out there, and in doing so, discovers that maybe love is a gamble worth taking.
strap: Love is a gamble: Kaily Morgan Smith’s short comedy of cringe sees a heartbroken woman putting herself out there a little too much in her new therapy group
© Anton Bitel
