En transit

At its heart, Jaclyn Bethany’s In Transit is a film that reflects on the fragile intersections between creation, identity, and the ways human beings reach for meaning in the midst of routine and quiet despair. Premiering at the 2025 Edinburgh International Film Festival, the film feels both intimate and universal, a meditation on the life-altering yet often imperceptible power of art. Written by Alex Sarrigeorgiou, who also stars in the central role, the story unfolds in a small coastal town in Maine where the shifting seasons dictate the rhythm of life. It is a place that thrives on summer tourism but falls into silence during the long, barren winters. Within this suspended world, In Transit situates its protagonist Lucy—a bartender whose existence is steady, predictable, and unremarkable—until a stranger’s arrival fractures her sense of permanence and opens the door to questions she can no longer avoid.

Lucy, played with understated poignancy by Alex Sarrigeorgiou, is a young woman who at first glance seems comfortable in her insular life. She works at the bar that her deceased father once helped open, where her father’s old partner, portrayed with earthy sincerity by Theodore Bouloukos, still holds court. She shares a home with her boyfriend Tom, embodied with sensitivity and emotional depth by François Arnaud, whose character could have easily been reduced to a narrative footnote but instead resonates with an almost heartbreaking honesty. Yet beneath Lucy’s routines—the crossword puzzles with patrons, the evenings with Tom—lies a simmering restlessness. She is beginning to wonder if her life is being lived fully or merely tolerated. This quiet unease becomes louder with the entrance of Ilse, a painter played by the always magnetic Jennifer Ehle. Ilse is creatively blocked and searching for renewal; she finds in Lucy not only a muse but an unexpected mirror.

The relationship that forms between Lucy and Ilse is at once invigorating and destabilizing. Ilse’s request that Lucy pose for her begins as a professional arrangement, but quickly evolves into a transformative bond filled with unspoken longing and subtle tensions. In their shared sessions, Ilse rediscovers the spark she feared had been extinguished, while Lucy experiences, perhaps for the first time, the thrill of being truly seen. The dynamic recalls Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, though where Sciamma’s film embraced a sweeping, operatic intensity, In Transit chooses a quieter, almost minimalist register. Jaclyn Bethany’s restrained direction, paired with muted earth tones and careful compositions, avoids dramatics in favor of a contemplative stillness that mirrors the characters’ emotional stasis. At times, this restraint risks alienation; the camera observes Lucy with detachment, creating a distance that some viewers may find too cold. Yet that very distance is also what gives the film its intellectual rigor—it resists easy sentimentality, instead leaning into the contradictions and costs of self-discovery.

It is impossible not to mention the way In Transit grapples with the role of art itself. “I am looking at you and I am muddied by expectations of my work and myself,” Ilse confesses at one point, a line that encapsulates the paradox of creation. To see and be seen is both an act of connection and distortion. Every gaze is refracted through personal desire, every portrait is as much about the artist as the subject. This tension forms the crux of Lucy and Ilse’s story: their collaboration produces beauty, yet the meaning of that beauty is not shared. For Lucy, modeling is an awakening, a fleeting glimpse at a self beyond the bar, beyond Tom, beyond her dead father’s legacy. For Ilse, it is an act of artistic survival, a lifeline to her own career and identity. Their realities do not align, and the aftermath is marked by a quiet ache that lingers long after the final frame.

Yet what prevents the film from dissolving into abstraction are the performances. Jennifer Ehle brings to Ilse a blend of charm, vulnerability, and edge, a woman who is both nurturing and deeply unsettled. Alex Sarrigeorgiou, as Lucy, excels at conveying the barely perceptible shifts of someone awakening to her own dissatisfaction, even when she cannot articulate it. The true surprise, however, is François Arnaud as Tom. Often relegated to the sidelines in narratives like this, Tom emerges as the film’s most emotive presence. His love for Lucy is evident, his pain when he senses her detachment palpable. He becomes, ironically, the most human entry point for the audience, grounding the cerebral layers of the film with raw emotion.

The film’s atmosphere is amplified by Juan Pablo Daranas Molina’s wistful piano-driven score, which underscores both the bleakness of the Maine winter and the tender flickers of intimacy between Lucy and Ilse. Music here becomes another kind of portrait, evoking the melancholy of a landscape and the restlessness of hearts trapped within it. It mirrors the duality at the center of In Transit: beauty emerging from isolation, passion flickering amid silence.

In Transit is not a film that seeks to resolve the existential questions it raises. As Alex Sarrigeorgiou herself wrote in her statement, it asks: “What makes a good life? Are we meant to strive for greatness, or simply enjoy the time we have?” These are questions that haunt Lucy, Ilse, and even Tom, yet no definitive answer is offered. The film’s strength lies precisely in that ambiguity, in its recognition that art and life are processes in motion—messy, unresolvable, and forever “in transit.” The narrative may leave some viewers wanting more emotional immediacy, yet it succeeds as an exploration of the costs and gifts of creation, the collisions between routine and passion, and the way even the smallest encounters can alter our sense of who we are. It is a film that touches the mind, stirs reflection, and leaves its audience quietly unsettled, much like the lives it so delicately portrays.

In transit 
Directed by Jaclyn Bethany
Written by Alex Sarrigeorgiou
Produced by Jaclyn Bethany, C.C. Kellog, Alex Sarrigeorgiou, Sarah Keyes, Tara Sheffer
Starring  Alex Sarrigeorgiou, François Arnaud, Jennifer Ehle
Cinematography : Sam Tetro
Edited by Shannon C. Griffin
Music by Juampa
Production companies : Valmora Productions, BKE Productions, Little Language Films, Good Question Media
Release date : August 17, 2025 (Edinburgh)
Running time : 85 minutes

Seen September 8 2025 at the Deauville International Center

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