Sundance 2026: Hot Water

1.5/5

Hot Water is a classic American road-trip film, following a mother and son who are strikingly similar yet feel worlds apart by the time we meet them. Lubna Azabal plays the mother, a Lebanese immigrant torn between identities and still struggling to feel at home. Daniel Zolghadri plays her son, fully Americanized, refusing to speak his mother’s native language and seemingly ungrateful for the opportunities afforded to him.

The problem is that this story has been told before—and told better. Hot Water feels content to mimic stronger films without offering anything new. The performances are almost too quiet, the rhythm nonexistent. The actors do their best to give weight to the film’s intended catharsis, but the script and uninspired filmmaking do them no favors.

We see all the familiar road-trip motifs—diners, landscapes, grimy motel rooms, a rotating cast of supporting characters—but none of it leaves much of an impression. When the father reenters the picture, the film’s focus shifts, only further guaranteeing a lack of meaningful closure for the mother and son we barely come to know, despite traveling hundreds of miles alongside them.

There’s very little here to chew on. The humor, like everything else, is sparse. I do appreciate Azabal’s performance, particularly in how she gestures toward the idea that at some point in life we stop trying to figure out who we are and start wondering how we ended up where we did. Unfortunately, the film explores this notion in only the most superficial ways.