Sundance 2025: ‘Jimpa’ is a Heartfelt, Resonant Film About Openness

Sundance 2025: ‘Jimpa’ is a Heartfelt, Resonant Film About Openness

by Alex Billington
January 24, 2025

Kicking off the 2025 Sundance Film Festival with a winner already. I adore this film. I really connected with it, even if I’m not like anyone in it. Jimpa is the latest film written and directed by Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde, best known for her previous films Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (at Sundance 2022) and Animals (at Sundance 2019). She’s excellent at telling intimate queer cinema stories and she remains one of the best filmmakers in this realm. Her latest wholesome cinema creation is Jimpa – her most personal film yet, a semi-autobiographical and self-referential meta tale of a family. It just premiered at Sundance and the experience was emotional for me, especially because I am watching it without any idea of what I’m about to see, or how it will feel, or who the characters are. And I nearly fell in love with every last person in this film. In a time where LGBTQ rights are being challenged by bigoted idiots, a heartfelt, warm and tender film like this is what we really need. A reminder that openness and love and support does make the world go ’round.

Jimpa is co-written by Matthew Cormack & Sophie Hyde, and directed by Sophie Hyde as her 4th feature. Olivia Colman stars as Hannah – she travels with her non-binary teenager Frances, played by newcomer Aud Mason-Hyde (the filmmaker’s own child) and husband, played by Daniel Henshall, to Amsterdam to visit her gay grandfather known as “Jimpa” (a portmanteau of his name Jim and the ending of grandpa). Frances expresses a desire to stay with him for a year there, challenging Hannah’s parenting and forcing her to confront past issues and address questions on LGBTQ identity. Frances prefers to be identified as “they” or “them” and is refereed to by Jimpa as his “grandthing.” John Lithgow stars in yet another exceptionally unique role as Jimpa – a passionate, quirky, workaholic gay man who has spent most of his life fighting for LGBTQ rights, and lives comfortably in Amsterdam where he still works as a professor. He can be abrasive and brutally honest, but it comes from places deep within him, as he always tries to remind everyone that he has been fighting for decades. But this film is not abrasive, it is the opposite – it’s so warm and supportive.

Above all, the film is filled with so many lovely characters. Jimpa has numerous good friends in Amsterdam: a group of old-timer gay queens he meets with at a cafe every day, along with caretakers, friends, lovers, and students from his university. Then there’s the family at the center of it all: Frances, Hannah, and Harry, plus Jimpa of course. And there’s also a couple of new friends that Frances makes exploring the LGBTQ scene in Amsterdam. Every single person in this film is understanding and loving and wise and welcoming. This may seem a bit cliche or unrealistic, and maybe it is, but that doesn’t matter because the entire point of the film is to bring us deep into this story and make us feel the very same comfort and support that all LGBTQ youth need once they’ve come out. It’s a film that carefully and earnestly explores sexual identity, relationships, grief, and more through an inter-generational lens. Each of these performances are authentic & wholesome, because this film is trying to teach us that choosing kindness and love is always possible and always better. It follows Jimpa as he tries to impart wisdom upon Frances, then gets into trouble when he questions their identity and choices because he comes from a different generation that doesn’t quite understand all of it yet.

Even though I enjoyed this film immensely, some of my friends & colleagues I’ve talked to at Sundance did not. It is a tad schmaltzy in its desire to avoid conflict in its story, though that never really bothered me. In fact, I think this choice to make the film less about conflict and more about the uplifting feeling of love & openness, is refreshing in this day and age. I’ve seen way too many LGBTQ films where the story gets violet and dangerous and unsettling, and I’m glad this film refuses to dip into that again. It’s so beautifully open, tender, and encouraging – it’s the comfort cinema we need more of now. I enjoyed all of the music choices in it, a few tracks (by Kishi Bashi) made me teary they were so good in the moment. Hyde also includes bird sounds in the background throughout, which make the film feel extra calm & comforting. I particularly love the way she integrates nostalgic flashback visions that flash briefly on screen when some of the characters reflect on their lives and/or their own upbringing. The film is often quite ethereal and warm-hearted in ways that might not work for some people… But I deeply connected with Hyde’s beautifully cinematic storytelling.

Alex’s Sundance 2025 Rating: 8 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing

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