The writing process is equal parts exhilarating, frustrating, chaotic, and fulfilling. So, why do we even do it? As “Hannibal” Smith from the 1980s TV series, “The A-Team,” used to say, I love it when a plan comes together. It’s orchestrating the perfect dance between characters, plot, setting, themes, conflict, and resolution. All of these elements are scattered puzzle pieces in a box, intimidating, but rewarding when the whole picture is put in place. Alex Vlack’s debut feature “The Revisionist” has a lot of thematic textures on its mind. For example, there’s a father/son fight-for-legacy story, a mysterious character from the past dropped in this world like fireworks to an open sky, and an author striving for a dynamic final installment of a trilogy. It almost feels too much for this 90-minute, sometimes fantastic drama to hold – and oftentimes it is.
Jacob (Tom Sturridge) is having a tough time finding a fulfilling creative outlet. He quits his job at an advertising agency to start a biography of a heralded cultural figure: his father, David (Dustin Hoffman). David, well, he’s not too keen on the idea. Any attempts by Jacob to inquire about his deceased mother or what his father’s feelings on it are are met with flippant pushback. Even more demoralizing is David’s insistence that Jacob stick to writing those jingles he’s so good at.
Elise (Alison Brie), Jacob’s wife, is a successful novelist formulating her own story. But she still has the time to encourage her husband to try to see this through. Maybe persistence is key – even if David is one of the most stubborn people in existence. If that wasn’t enough, an old friend named John (André Holland) happens to pop back up after 15 years. He was once regarded as a wunderkind in the writing world, and has hit rock bottom of his imaginative spring. With a gift of gab, John reignites the embers of his once stagnant friendship with Jacob and Elise.
But this nomad’s sudden inclusion in “The Revisionist” serves a bigger purpose. Elise comes up with an idea that John should be the records keeper of sorts for Jacob’s fledgling autobiography. He’ll go and ham it up with David, record some of his life stories, and then turn them over to Jacob for his book. This digging into the distance between a son and his father, with a long-lost friend acting as a go-between, could be its own film.
To Holland’s credit, he plays a clever character who can talk himself into situations without detection of other potential motives. Let’s say being the author of David’s story might be too enticing for him to pass up. Vlack’s film also overly displays a prior romance between him and Elise. But any potential strife stemming from a love triangle or the need to fill an emotional void is blunted by the surface-level nature of Jacob and Elise’s relationship.
At best, it feels like Brie’s character feels more like a cheer section for Sturridge’s Jacob as he’s kept at a distance from David’s ever-growing contempt for the life he’s lived. Hoffman is engaging, fusing the aged, sometimes ornery writer with a haunted gravitas of a man with a huge skeleton to hide. “The Revisionist” adds scenes here and there that wink at the prospect of all the story’s crazy theatrical swings being the result of someone’s imagination. However, these tonal shifts might be a bit far-fetched for even the most avid of fiction novel lovers to latch on to.
When the film concluded, I tried to reason with the many lessons it tried to tie up in a seemingly neat conclusion. Maybe you need a little bit of spice for an easy-going, familiar strife story. It would be nice to rewrite your life with a little bit of danger to reach a much-needed end to the past. But “The Revisionist” concludes that the ability to alternate is not necessarily the best for a 90-minute film with so many pathways and little interest in making them meaningful.
“The Revisionist” was reviewed at the 2026 Tribeca Festival.
