''What We Do Next'' is a 2022 American thriller directed by

Stephen Belber Stephen Belber (born March 3, 1967) is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. His plays have been produced on Broadway and in over 50 countries. He directed the film adaptation of his Broadway play ''Match'', starring Patrick St ...

and starring

Corey Stoll Corey Daniel Stoll (born March 14, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Congressman Peter Russo on the Netflix political thriller series ''House of Cards'' (2013–2016), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination in ...

, Karen Pittman and

Michelle Veintimilla Michelle Veintimilla is an Ecuadorian American film, television, and theater actress. She played the role of villain Firefly in the second and fourth seasons of the Fox television series '' Gotham''. She portrayed Carmen Guerra on FOX's ''The G ...

. It premiered at the

Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival The Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival is an annual independent film festival held each March in San Jose, California and Redwood City, California. The international festival combines the cinematic arts with Silicon Valley’s innovation. It i ...

in April 2022. It had a limited theatrical release on March 3, 2023.

Synopsis

Mercado (Veintimilla) has served 16 years in prison for killing her abusive father. After her release, a New York City Councilwoman (Pittman) and a corporate attorney (Stoll) are forced to face up to their involvement in the original crime.

Cast

as Elsa Mercado *

as Paul Jenkins * Karen Pittman as Sandy James

Production

Chris Mangano, Merry-Kay Poe and Max Neace produced the film, which is a co-production between Poe's Unbridled Films and Mangano's Mangano Movies & Media.

Lynn Nottage Lynn Nottage (born November 2, 1964) is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for he ...

acted as co-producer. Writer and director

was an executive producer along with Brian Tanke, and Matt Bronson. It was filmed in the autumn of 2020 in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

in six and a half shooting days during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Release

Producers Unbridled Films and Mangano Movies & Media are handling distribution for the film which premiered at the

in April 2022, and then also played at the Flyover Film Festival in Louisville. Kentucky in July 2022. The film had a Canadian premiere at the

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Festi ...

on September 30, 2022. The film has a limited US cinema release date of 3 March 2023.Indie Thriller ‘What We Do Next’ Gets March Theatrical Release Date After Festival Run

Reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, ''What We Do Next'' holds an approval rating of 100% based on 10 reviews with an average rating of 10/10. Following the premiere for the film Randy Myers in

The Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

described it as “a taut, never harried 77 minutes” and “well acted and thought provoking”. Lapacazo Sandoval in the

New York Amsterdam News The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...

reflected that the film had clear beginnings as a play and “is basically still a play, just shot on film”. Praise was given to the director of photography, Garrette Rose, production designer, Christelle Matou, and editor Justin Chan for making a film that was “beautiful to look at”.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 13475220 Films shot in Louisville, Kentucky 2022 films American drama films 2022 drama films Films set in New York City 2020s English-language films 2020s American films Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic