Poetic License, 2025.
Directed by Maude Apatow.
Starring Andrew Barth Feldman, Cooper Hoffman, Leslie Mann, Nico Parker, and Method Man.
SYNOPSIS:
Two inseparable best friends, Sam and Ari, start to unravel as they compete for the affection of Liz, the middle-aged mom auditing their college poetry workshop.
Poetic License isn’t a great film—but it’s on par with most half-decent television streaming movie comedies. It captures the mix of drama and comedy that defines university life, yet rarely pushes beyond surface charm. As a freshman effort, it squeaks by with a passing grade.
The film centers on two university pals (Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman) whose bond frays when an older woman (Leslie Mann) enters the picture by auditing a poetry class they take together. Written by Raffi Donatich without much style or originality, the movie lacks a clear hook. The stakes are too low to make the movie exciting but all the actors are up to the challenge and you can tell the director is drawing from a very affectionate and real place. Apatow occasionally gestures at deeper questions—what we expect and should expect from friends, parents, and children—but it’s all very pat. The poetry sessions that operate as connective tissue are almost an afterthought.
Similar to most Apatow productions, the movie serves two functions: as a hangout film and a coming-of-age film. It is not dissimilar to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, although thanks to seeing it in the theatres with a large audience, I didn’t find this one quite as dry.
Hoffman is the standout here, revealing a bold comedic streak rarely glimpsed in Licorice Pizza or Saturday Night. There are flashes of his father’s (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) manic energy, and it’s fun to see him strut rather than sulk. Still, his character—meant to serve as the plot’s accelerant—never generates much actual conflict. Feldman, by contrast, is all restraint. Like in No Hard Feelings, he is an excellent scene partner, making space for everyone else to be funny, reacting rather than mugging, and giving a flatly written role just enough spark to matter. Their interplay is often more amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it works.
Leslie Mann brings her usual warmth, echoing her turn in Funny People, she brings emotional honesty and just enough sensitivity to morally questionable characters. She livens the film whenever she’s on screen, though her character is thinly drawn as a former therapist who gave up her license. Both times she reveals why, it is completely inconsequential. The film overstays its welcome by about ten minutes, but the cast’s chemistry keeps it watchable. Apatow thankfully avoids her father’s tendency to bloat runtimes by half an hour.
In our social media age, there’s a built-in skepticism when the child of a successful director gets to make a debut film starring her friends—especially when so many peers are still struggling for opportunities. While it never feels as economically insulated as This Is 40 (which her entire family appeared in), Poetic License still uses one character’s inherited wealth and another’s cushy job placement as plot shortcuts, sidestepping any real financial pressures that might have made their struggles more compelling.
When you’re directing, every family portrait is a self portrait. Method Man, who plays Mann’s mostly absent husband, is quietly the film’s most authoritative figure—well-connected, respected, and loved by his family, even doubling as Feldman’s professor. He seems like a stand-in for Judd Apatow. Meanwhile, Nico Parker is sidelined as the couple’s daughter, functioning almost like a stand-in for Apatow’s real-life sister Iris: younger, off doing her own thing, and trying to break away from her mom’s orbit. Despite their obvious problems they are completely supportive of each other and overly welcoming to strangers- a real Hollywood family.
Visually, the film shows flashes of wit. Jocelyn Pierce’s costumes are its most striking element—especially during a lawn fight where each character’s colors subtly signal passion, caution, or coolness. The outfits often serve as plot points in themselves, most memorably at a mustache-and-miniskirt party. Jeffrey Waldron’s camera finds laughs simply by lingering on the cast’s faces, and a slow zoom on Feldman during that party delivers the biggest one. These moments hint at the more daring, stylized filmmaker Apatow could become if she embraced the kind of visual storytelling glimpsed in her work on Euphoria.
Apatow clearly inherits her father’s tonal blend of comedy and heart, and Hoffman—for the first time—plays a role his father might have, like Sandy Lyle from Along Came Polly if he wandered into Dead Poets Society. It’s an odd mix, and not always a satisfying one, but the sincerity is there.
Ultimately, Poetic License relies on charm rather than insight. It’s breezy and intermittently funny—never profound—and could have been riskier, more daring, and more creative, but for a nervous first time filmmaker under great family pressure in the social media age it’s a just good enough debut to make you curious what Apatow might do when she aims higher.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Will Hume
