Run Amok — Sundance Review
Source: Sundance
NB Mager’s Run Amok is an undeniably unique and admirably ambitious film. However, it’s also an absolute tonal disaster. It’s not every day one sees a film about a high school staging a musical about school shootings, especially one that’s meant to be a comedy. The problem is, the film never seems to know exactly which genre it wants to adhere to.
Alyssa Marvin stars as Meg, a teenage girl who stages a musical to commemorate the anniversary of a shooting that occurred at her high school a few years earlier. Meg is precocious, quirky, and a bit of an outsider. She’s a character that seems inspired by Max Fischer from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (1998) or perhaps Dawn Wiener from Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995). Marvin delivers a layered performance, but it isn’t enough to salvage the film from the tonal whiplash derived from the screenplay.
Run Amok is meant to make a statement about healing through art and the search for catharsis. It’s a film that seeks to walk a tightrope between dark humor and devastating heartbreak. Nonetheless, the tonal shifts are unbelievably jarring. It starts off feeling like a quirky satire about a serious subject. Then, it attempts to shift gears and take a more emotional approach by having the students reenact the shooting in a somber manner. It’s asking too much of the audience, leaving us unsure whether to laugh or cry, seldom achieving either one.
The film’s jumbled mix of tones makes it feel like a cross between an episode of Glee and an afterschool special, and the cinematography doesn’t do much to elevate it beyond that. Much of the film is shot in a flat, functional style, relying on conventional coverage and bright, television-like lighting that undercuts the gravity of its subject matter. Even in scenes meant to carry emotional weight, the camera maintains a distance, visually aligning moments of trauma with the same aesthetic language as its comedic beats.
Ultimately, Run Amok feels less like a provocation than a miscalculation. Its intentions are earnest, but earnestness alone can’t reconcile a film that treats trauma as both a punchline and a spectacle. Ambition without tonal discipline leaves the film stranded between satire and sincerity, never committing fully to either.
Run Amok premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2026.
