DUST BUNNY
(director/writer: Bryan Fuller; cinematographer: Nicole Hirsch Whitaker; editor: Lisa Lassek; music: Isabella Summers; cast: Sophie Sloan (Aurora), Mads Mikkelsen (neighbor), Sigourney Weaver (Laverne), Sheila Atim (Brenda), Rebecca Henderson (intimidating woman), David Dastmalchian (conspicuously inconspicuous man), Line Kruse (mother), Caspar Phillipson (father); Runtime: 106; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Bryan Fuller, Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee; Lionsgate/Road Attraction; 2025)
“It’s a dreamlike film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Bryan Fuller is the TV writer of the hit cult series Pushing Daisies. His first feature film as writer-director is this offbeat, visually impressive, stylish, hybrid-children’s fairy tale and action adult thriller.
It tells of an 8-year-old girl named Aurora (Sophie Sloan), who lives in an unnamed city that appears to be NYC (it was filmed in Budapest), in a pre-war apartment building near Chinatown with her loving foster parents (Line Kruse & Caspar Phillipson). She becomes afraid there’s a monster under her bed when she sees a ball of dust in the shape of a bunny and thinks it’s the monster that ate her parents.
There’s no dialogue for the first 15 minutes, but the film then kicks in and becomes a good watch.
The fearful girl meets her next-door neighbor (who she follows one night in Chinatown and sees him slay what she thinks is a dragon but are members of a triad gang). He’s referred to as Resident 5B (Mads Mikkelsen, Danish actor) and is a professional hit man with a deadpan expression. She asks him to kill the monster living under her bed and offers him the money she stole from a church poor box to do the job. He feels sorry for her and agrees, wondering if her parents were killed by mistake by a hitman who meant to get him. The innocent child and aging gangster bond through quirky conversations, which is the funniest part of the film.
The bemused hitman contacts his scary sophisticated handler Laverne (Sigourney Weaver) to help him figure things out about how to handle the situation with the kid.
It’s a dreamlike film that takes you into the thoughts and fears of the precocious innocent child and into the destructive adult world of the aging hitman.
Supporting actors include Sheila Atim as Brenda, a child service worker. David Dastmalchian as a hitman called the Inconspicuous Man, and Rebecca Henderson as the Intimidating Woman.
Though the film is too bizarre and the story too scattered for me to enjoy it as thoroughly as I wanted to; nevertheless, I found it intriguing even if it kept going off on tangents I couldn’t possibly follow.
It played at the Toronto Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 1/11/2026 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com