The Accompanist

For his feature-length directorial debut, Zach Woods, best known for his finely calibrated comic performances in The Office and Silicon Valley, makes an unexpectedly delicate turn with The Accompanist. Premiering in the Premiere section of the Deauville American film festival, the film begins like a social drama about a child entering foster care, but gradually reveals a more troubling subject: the emotional responsibilities that adults, often without realizing it, place upon children. Co-written with Brandon Gardner, this 110-minute drama can be funny, tender and quietly devastating, even if its later attempts at magical realism sometimes disturb the fragile balance established by its strongest scenes.

Nine-year-old Emily, played with remarkable restraint by Everly Carganilla, lives in New Jersey with her grandfather, Martin Molido, portrayed by Kevyn Morrow. He loves her, but his advancing dementia has inverted their relationship. She watches the stove, keeps track of his medication and responds to his confusion with the exhausted patience of someone who has learned far too early that panic solves nothing. A remote control stored in the medicine cabinet and a handwritten reminder about the stove tell us almost everything before the screenplay begins explaining it. The situation becomes impossible to ignore when the grandfather drives onto railway tracks and freezes as a train approaches. It is an extremely efficient sequence, frightening because the child understands the danger more clearly than the adult responsible for protecting her. When social worker Sarah, played by Aubrey Plaza, intervenes, the removal is so abrupt that it resembles an abduction rather than a rescue. The intention may be protective, yet from Emily’s perspective the authorities have simply taken her away from the only family she has left.

Her emergency placement is with Sylvia Chasen, a seventy-three-year-old foster parent brought to life by Susan Sarandon in one of the film’s great pleasures. Sylvia smokes, tells inappropriate jokes, stages childish pranks and treats institutional rules as loose suggestions. When Emily refuses to enter her house and escapes to a nearby park, Sylvia does not attempt to overpower her. She arrives with food, a blanket and a flashlight, turning the confrontation into an improvised night of camping. It is an amusing anecdote, but also a revealing one: Sylvia recognizes that the girl’s defiance is not bad behaviour but an attempt to recover some control. Susan Sarandon plays this eccentricity without transforming the character into a lovable cinematic grandmother manufactured to soften the audience. Her humour can be generous or defensive, and a mischievous smile may conceal a sudden current of anger, shame or fear. The actress gives every contradiction a lived-in quality, making Sylvia’s cluttered home — crowded with photographs, ornaments and memories — feel like a physical extension of its owner.

The growing connection between the pair allows The Accompanist to move beyond the familiar idea of a “found family.” Emily has already become her grandfather’s practical caregiver, and living with Sylvia does not entirely release her from that role; it merely changes its form. Sylvia is haunted by the death of her daughter, a ballet dancer portrayed by Emma Farnell-Watson, and by the belief that she failed her as a mother. During a storm, when the supposedly fearless foster parent becomes overwhelmed, Emily once again finds herself comforting an adult. This is the film’s sharpest and most unsettling observation. Children rarely possess the context required to interpret depression, grief or guilt, so they often assume that an adult’s emotional withdrawal must somehow be their fault. Emily does not need anyone to accuse her directly. She observes the atmosphere in a room, notices a change in tone and quietly turns another person’s suffering into evidence against herself. In that sense, the title acquires a painful significance: she is forever accompanying other people, adapting to their tempo and supporting them while her own needs remain unheard.

Everly Carganilla avoids the calculated precociousness frequently imposed on young performers. Emily does not exist to produce adorable reactions or deliver prematurely wise speeches. She withdraws, runs away, lies when she believes the truth might separate her from someone and expresses affection with visible caution. Her gradual interest in the piano is especially affecting, culminating in a tentative phrase from Porgy and Bess that communicates more than an elaborate declaration could. The interplay between Everly Carganilla and Susan Sarandon is strongest in such modest moments: sharing breakfast after the night in the park, testing a joke or sitting together in a silence that neither character knows how to fill. Aubrey Plaza has considerably less material, but she gives the social worker an interesting mixture of bureaucratic urgency, fatigue and embarrassment. The character makes serious mistakes, although the performance suggests someone overwhelmed by a system that demands immediate decisions while offering inadequate time, information and options.

Where The Accompanist becomes less convincing is in its repeated excursions into fantasy. The opening interpretive-dance sequence establishes the ghost of Sylvia’s daughter before the audience understands its meaning, while later visions, shared memories and an airborne journey through the night attempt to translate grief into a dreamlike visual language. Cinematographer Andre Lascaris gives the New Jersey locations an attractive autumnal warmth and makes Sylvia’s house hover convincingly between domestic reality and a forgotten storybook. Yet the surreal passages often feel imported from a more self-consciously poetic film. They explain emotions that the actors have already conveyed with greater precision, and the persistent foreshadowing of Sylvia’s tragedy eventually becomes heavier than the revelation itself. Some practical details are equally strained: the social worker’s improvisation, the confusion surrounding school enrolment and the adults’ limited response to Emily’s recurring physical twitch require a generous suspension of disbelief. These weaknesses reveal the ambition, but also the uncertainty, of a first feature trying to combine intimate realism, eccentric comedy and a ghost story within the same emotional space.

Despite these tonal hesitations, The Accompanist resists the most damaging convention of foster-care dramas: the fantasy that one caring adult can repair every wound. Sylvia is neither a saint nor a solution. She can give Emily safety, laughter and genuine affection while still exposing her to unresolved pain. Zach Woods wisely avoids tying every relationship into a reassuring bow, favouring mutual recognition over miraculous healing. The result is imperfect, occasionally overextended and too eager to make its symbolism visible, but its emotional intelligence survives those flaws. Anchored by the fearless vulnerability of Susan Sarandon and the striking naturalism of Everly Carganilla, the film leaves behind a difficult question: what happens when the adults who love a child are also the people teaching her to carry their burdens? Score: 3.5/5

The Accompanist
Directed by Zach Woods
Written by Zach Woods, Brandon Gardner
Produced by Lauren Bratman, Allison Hironaka, Michael Sagol, Carlos Zozaya, Zach Woods, Aubrey Plaza
Starring Susan Sarandon, Everly Carganilla, Kevyn Morrow, Aubrey Plaza
Cinematography: Andre Lascaris
Edited by Darrin Navarro
Music by Gavin Bryars, Yuri Bryars
Production companies: Caviar
Distributed by NC
Release dates: NC
Running time: 110 minutes

Seen on 10 September 2026 at the Deauville International Centre