Filmmaker Gabriel Mayo embodies the spirit of a Joe Swanberg picture in his debut feature film, A Weird Kind of Beautiful. In this tight-knit group drama, Mayo crafts a tense and eccentric story as deeply held secrets reveal themselves. Don’t let the film’s minimalist set and production design fool you, there is never a dull moment. A Weird Kind of Beautiful makes its world premiere at the 2025 Miami Film Festival.

Secrets Don’t Keep Friendships

A group of dysfunctional twenty-somethings gather together after the funeral of their best friend. They commemorate his memory the only way they know how, by drinking and sharing old stories. The group gives off the impression of immaturity and stunted growth as they bicker and yell at each other in dramatic and often piercing ways. Yet the dynamic drastically changes when their former friend Eric arrives with his fiance. Eric, the group outlier, hasn’t seen his friends in eight years. His attendance is a pleasant surprise for most, but not everyone.

Having held his secret for years, one of the friends is finally ready to come clean. She exposes one of Eric’s deep dark secrets which threatens his future with his fiance and his relationship with the group. This secret is vile, disturbing, and graphic. A trigger warning should be acknowledged for those sensitive to unsettling sexual acts involving minors. It’s a horrifying circumstance that adds infinite shock value to the film. However, it’s hard to not be repelled by this storyline.

A Dialogue-Heavy Script Is a Shock to the System

Gabriel Mayo’s feature flips the script on the conventionally lighthearted fare often found in buddy films. In A Weird Kind of Beautiful, there is a somber and palpable energy that intends to shake things up. In addition to the jarring script, the decision to film in a single location further creates a sense of bottlenecked tension. Mayo acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to make stylistic changes during production, and the one-location setting solved logistical problems. The frenetic energy comes from the dialogue, which the cast passionately delivers.

Takeaway

Friendships are nebulous relationships that evolve as we grow older. A Weird Kind of Beautiful shows one extreme of confronting hard truths. Whether or not these relationships can weather the storm is yet to be seen. However, the film does a commendable job of conveying the ebbs, flows, and growing pains in adult relationships.