Writer-director Ricky Tollman’s feature debut Run This Town is a political thriller mixed with biting commentary on the state of the millennial generation.

Set in 2013 Toronto, the story centers on the lead up to the explosive substance abuse scandal that ensnared the controversial Mayor, Rob Ford.

Tollman’s film explores how the millennial generation navigates the halls of power in politics and media. Rob Ford (Damian Lewis, unrecognizable under prosthetic makeup), as a sort of dumb-politics John the Baptist presaging Donald Trump, makes for the perfect fulcrum for a millennial-focused political-scandal movie. The film’s performances illustrate how familiar millennial archetypes make compromises with, and are compromised by, the structures that allow a Rob Ford to come to power in the first place.

The plot focuses primarily on Bram (Ben Platt), an eager but slightly incompetent young journalist interning at a Toronto newspaper. With his eyes on something bigger than the best-brunch-spot listicles he’s being assigned, Bram, by sheer dumb-luck, ends up getting a tip that there might be something strange going on in the Mayor’s office. Kamal (Mena Massoud), an immigrant working for the virulently anti-immigrant Ford, is the Mayor’s Special Assistant and the ringleader of the young political staffers, including the hyper-competent Ashley (Nina Dobrev). The staffers are shown to be doing the actual work of governing the city—all while putting out the fires started by PR nightmare Mayor Ford.

The stories of Bram, Kamal, and Ashley represent the ways that the ambitions of their generation are undercut by their elders and institutional forces beyond their control. Whether it’s the pernicious incompetence and vitriolic political leadership of Rob Ford, or the explosive growth of clickbait “journalism”— unstoppable despite the best efforts of Bram’s editor Judith (Jennifer Ehle)— the deck is in so many ways stacked against the young people in Tollman’s film.

RUN THIS TOWN (2020)

Starring Ben Platt, Mena Massoud, Nina Dobrev, Scott Speedman, Jennifer Ehle, Damian Lewis

Directed by Ricky Tollman

Written by Ricky Tollman

Distributed by Oscilloscope, Twitter, Quiver. 99 minutes. Opening this Friday at the Laemmle Monica Film Center and On Demand.