Since its launch in 1995, the Slamdance Film Festival has been full to bursting with micro-budgeted concoctions from emerging artists who receded as fast as they emerged. But the festival has launched numerous big-deal careers. Rian Johnson (Evil Demon Golf Ball from Hell!!!), Christopher Nolan (Following), and Joe and Anthony Russo (Pieces) are among the filmmakers who jumped more than one rung on the directing ladder thanks to Slamdance. What’s more common is that the festival is a notch on the career bedpost for fringe, first-time filmmakers who gave it an honest try and, if they're lucky, will get to try again someday. That’s what happens when a Slamdance entry can’t quite lay claim to a major talent being born.

Onto that list comes Sabrina Greco, whose languid and intermittently interesting debut feature, Lockjaw, premiered at the 2025 Slamdance festival, which has relocated to Los Angeles from its former home in Salt Lake City, Utah. The film hinges on a promising idea. Its main character, Rayna, spends the entire film with her jaw wired shut after surviving a car accident she caused while driving drunk. Six weeks after the accident, she spends her first night out on the town, dragging along her kinda-sorta boyfriend Mitch and their jealous male friend, Noah. Eventually, the evening takes an odd turn when the trio meet a magician and his artist wife.

While all that may remind us of great mumblecore movies, Lockjaw turns on a cheeky conceptual hook, one that ultimately doesn't fully service the notion of a woman processing her guilt through gritted, wired-shut teeth while her friends work up the courage to judge her as harshly as she deserves. In Greco's script, characters often talk around their feelings, or suppress their feelings, instead of just expressing them.

The film is also billed as a comedy, although it only contains a few chuckles, mostly courtesy of Blu Hunt, who does a terrific job using facial expressions, body language, and limited vocalizations to convey Rayna’s shifting, often difficult, emotions. Otherwise, a troubled, often unintelligible woman depending on others to express her feelings or advance her character hurts our investment in her and the film.

Lockjaw’s opening credits are purposely a touch blurry to suggest that an urban, night-crawling, ‘70s-era John Cassavetes deep dive is on the way. But that’s not what Greco has in mind, nor is she chasing the lunacy of Martin Scorsese’s frantic, dark night of the comedic soul masterpiece, After Hours. Instead, Lockjaw spends its lolloping 80 minutes circling Rayna’s problems, using symbolism that’s better in theory than execution, while also being a rather unexciting look at male jealousy and bonding.

It’s obvious from the outset that Mitch (the unique Colin Burgess, so perfect in Search Party) is technically Rayna’s boyfriend, but Noah (Kevin Grossman) is more than ready to be drafted, if asked. The three attend the evening’s pre-game at a mellow house party, with Mitch fending off the curious with different lies to explain Rayna’s jaw problem and worrying that she’ll start drinking again. When Noah suggests they level-up the fun by attending a magic show, Rayna jumps at the chance at “maximizing our night,” while Mitch prefers they “minimize” their first night out since her accident.

Greco directs her performers to deliver their dialogue with an aim towards loosey-goosey, modern naturalism. And while everyone ably obliges, the vibe is awfully relaxed, especially when compared to the early films of Richard Linklater or mumblecore pioneers like Greta Gerwig and the Duplass brothers, where even the most tossed-off lines had energy and purpose.

At the opposite end is the star of the magic show, a magician named Robert, who we first see dressed in a conspicuous all-black Beat poet number (complete with dark sunglasses) and taking photos of bar patrons. He’s played by Nick Corirossi as a supremely creepy and arrogant visitor from another movie. Robert, with his amazing abilities as a mentalist, reads as a more conceptual figure in Rayna’s journey through her guilt, although it's unclear whether this was the intent. Either way, Corirossi often plays the symbol more than the character, which renders Robert broad and ill-fitting.

After Robert’s magic show, he and his equally off-putting wife, Cleo (Ally Davis), take the trio back to their home where the remaining action unfolds. Although any reasonable person would have bolted from the home of these horrible people within five minutes, Greco needs everyone to stay so that Robert can show Rayna an actual PowerPoint presentation he created of her accident (thankfully, he didn’t have time to incorporate the CCTV footage he acquired). Putting aside how bizarre that is, it also denies Rayna the opportunity to come to grips with her trauma on her own.

Considering the budget, cinematographer Neal Wynne does a good job lighting the nighttime exteriors of the home where Rayna acts out by defacing Cleo’s art. She learns that Mitch and Noah are feuding because they’re both in love with her. By swallowing her grief more than working through it, Rayna is pushing both of them away, leading to some nice exchanges, as when her friend Annabelle (Sally Sum) notes how Rayna and Mitch’s relationship was better before the accident. Other choice beats include Annabelle putting on her retainer in solidarity with Rayna’s wired jaw, a gesture the latter angrily rejects.

Greco earns points by minimizing the scope of Rayna’s victory towards the end. While we're inclined to root for Rayna, her treatment of those trying to help her tests our ability to stay on her side. It's a line that the talented Hunt straddles quite well as she drinks out of a syringe that usually contains water but may sometimes contain alcohol. And her “aw-shucks” response as Robert innocently and genuinely calls her “pretty interesting” is a warm moment that Rayna will quickly ruin.

Indeed, the film’s final third has the clean lines and emotional directness that the rest of the film could have used more of (it also could have used a score more effective than Will August Park’s random tinkling). Oftentimes, micro-budgeted films of the Slamdance variety need a script so incisive, creative, or raw that whatever little money they spend putting it on film doesn’t matter. Greco is a first-time feature filmmaker filled with ideas, and that’s a good thing. Developing those ideas into a solid whole where character, story and a tasty hook work smoothly together would be an even better thing.

Lockjaw, a production of Hurley/Pickle Productions and Mirmade Productions, premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival on February 22 and is currently awaiting distribution.