“SHE KEEPS ME YOUNG” // TRIBECA 2026
BY MATEO MORENO
SHE KEEPS ME YOUNG, the new film by Doron Max Hagay, is an odd duck. And I think that’s exactly what it wants. It follows Michelle (Blair Beeken), a middle-aged woman navigating her life as best as she can. Four years ago, her fiancé disappeared after a hiking trip, never to be seen again. It’s a strange plot point for a film that’s not a mystery, but there it is and you can either laugh at it or wonder when he’s going to step back in the door, if ever. Her job is working for an eyeglass repair store and she’s so good with the customers and her job her younger than she is boss wants to promote her to a manager. She holds out, with hesitation, feeling that there’s something perhaps just around the corner. Her best friend Kelly (Katy Fullan) is a dental hygienist and is fully unhappy in her life. She’s in an unhappy marriage but is in denial of it. Yet she flirts with their hip-hop dancer instructor in a way that’s not what you do when you’re in a happy relationship but stuck in an unhappy one. Michelle is stuck too, unable to move on from her fiancé never coming home and start living her life again. She finds joy in the hip-hop class she goes to with Kelly and it’s there that she meets Bridget (Shay Rudolph) who comes up to Michelle after class one day and says that she’d love to take pictures of her for an art project she’s working on. Michelle reluctantly agrees and ends up forming a fast friendship with Bridget and it’s because of her that she starts living her life. Problem is, Bridget is a 17-year-old senior in high school.
Co-stars Blair Beeken and Kathy Fullan, along with director and co-writer Doron Max Hagay, have crafted a sharp dramedy about middle-aged women and the push and pull of restarting your life and reaching that second half of it. It’s also a film that’s full of unanswered questions and contradictions. Michelle’s friendship with Bridget appears to be innocent and both of them seem to simply enjoy being around each other. But a middle-aged women shouldn’t be hanging out with a minor, period, no matter how “innocent” it is. Kelly attempts to both prove that point, as it really bothers her, and to try and put a stop to it, going to extreme lengths to do so. However, her motivations are less righteous and more based out of jealousy, and she’s revealed to be kind the kind of person that doesn’t know what boundaries are (especially with her “final move” in the film, which is deeply unsettling). Plus, the question of is Michelle gay hangs in the air unanswered, which would make her friendship with an underage girl even creepier. No one is painted as a villain but also wisely no one is labeled as doing something right. Along with Michelle’s other friends (who are a barrage of mixed up and messed up in their own ways), they are simply human beings, trying to navigate the world and often coming up short. There’s sharp writing and strong direction here, and the performances are all sound (especially the lead trio of Beeken, Fullan and Rudolph), but the ickiness of the film and the inability to really answer any questions at all fill the room with an uneasiness. Are we supposed to justify the characters or judge them or neither? Laugh with them? At them? It’s an odd duck of a film, as I stated before. One that seems to have made a choice to say a lot and answer nothing, on purpose. Which, in itself, is an bold take.
GRADE: B
WRITTEN BY Blair Beeken, Katy Fullan, Doron Max Hagay DIRECTED BY Doron Max Hagay STARRING Blair Beeken, Katy Fullan, Shay Rudolph, Ayden Mayeri, Patti Harrison, John Early, Kate Berlant, Mike “Mitch” Mitchell SELECTED AS PART OF THE 2026 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL. FOR MORE INFO: https://tribecafilm.com/films/she-keeps-me-young-2026