This post is from the Festival Focus series, spotlighting movies playing at film festivals. The movie discussed below played at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
The Musical, a Sundance 2026 U.S. Dramatic Competition title, tells the story of middle-school theater teacher Doug Leibowitz (Will Brill) who finds out his former girlfriend—the school’s art teacher (Gillian Jacobs)—has taken up with the principal (Rob Lowe). He sets off on an elaborate revenge plan, aiming to sink the school’s efforts to earn a coveted blue ribbon rating.
Key Moment
When we finally see the titular musical of the title, it’s a showstopper—well worth the price of admission.
Killer Line
“Everybody talks about the power of love. But nobody talks about the power of spite.”
Standout Player
All the kids in this are great, delivering A+ reaction shots. But it’s Will Brill’s movie. He’s in nearly every scene and his bitterness, awkwardness, and misdirected enthusiasm feel eerily real.
Big Picture
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver turns 50 this year. And like a lot of 50-year-olds, its children are now proliferating the world. By that I mean movies where it becomes increasingly clear our protagonist is more troubled than we initially suspected as they set out to achieve a warped goal to right the world (the quintessential Taxi Driver child to me is probably Observe and Report with Seth Rogen).
To my surprise and delight, The Musical falls into the Taxi Driver family. Here our unstable hero is a grumpy theater teacher named Doug. Like Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, he speaks to us in voiceover and becomes more untethered as the movie rolls on. In some ways, Doug’s actions may be even more disturbing than Bickle’s because they involve him interacting with a group of young kids who hang on his every word.
When we first meet Doug, he already seems to be at a low point. He’s lost his girlfriend and he’s pretty discontent with his job. But he still has hope those things will turn around. When he finds out his girlfriend has moved on to Principal Brady (played with tanned clueless cockiness by Rob Lowe) and his dream of getting a playwright grant is shattered, Doug breaks—becoming fixated on taking down Principal Brady (ala Bickle’s obsession with senator Palantine).
That’s the basic setup. But the real joy comes from watching Doug spiral deeper down the vengeance hole and bring his madness to the young theater students. It’s in these scenes the movie turns into a more cynical, sinister version of School of Rock. A particularly juicy scene involves Doug playing The Manchurian Candidate for his class so they will be prepared when their lives are chewed up and spit out by “the machine”. This leads to an honest and funny back-and-forth between Doug and the children.
In some warped ways, Doug’s brutal honesty (and dishonesty) unlocks new levels of artistry in the kids. While he’s involving them in his schemes, they’re also doing something a little more creative and memorable than theater as usual. In his collapse, Doug may be inadvertently becoming a more engaged teacher. Though this idea is there for the taking, to its credit the movie never makes it explicit. This is not a script that falls back on heart or life lessons in disservice to its story or main character.
It’s not spoiling anything to say the movie builds to a big performance that really delivers (and also includes a great, unexpected needle drop). It’s a moment that’s both twisted and triumphant for Doug and the kids. While I’m not really a proponent of legacy sequels, it would be interesting to catch up with these kids in 15-20 years to see how this experience shaped their lives (for better and worse). The movie also gives us an epilogue that provides a final chuckle and drives home its Taxi Driver DNA.
The Musical gave me the kind of experience I hope for when I watch a festival movie, where I’m not quite sure where it’s gonna go next. Don’t be fooled by its upbeat title—this is a dark movie. But it’s also a pretty damn funny one.
Quick Takes
The Musical is the feature film directorial debut of Giselle Bonilla, an actress whose credits include the 2007 movie Freedom Writers (think Dangerous Minds with Hilary Swank) and episodes of Workaholics and Grey’s Anatomy. I like what she does here, injecting the movie with subtle style that never screams for attention.
There is a challenge selling this movie to audiences: The title. I must admit I was reluctant to watch this at first because I thought it was a musical (once I started hearing the good buzz I went for it anyway). But the marketing approach with recent movies that are actual musicals like Wicked and Mean Girls has been to play down their musical-ness because studios don’t think audiences want to see musicals—though once they see them they enjoy them.
As of this writing, The Musical still has not secured a deal with a distributor. So no word yet on if/when this movie will be hitting theaters or streaming services. But I can’t imagine someone won’t scoop it up.