CONTENT WARNING: This review contains some spoilers for the film “Anniversary” (2025), and also touches on topics such as homophobia, suicide and terrorism. Reader’s discretion may be applicable.
If you have political views even remotely like mine, you probably had some…interesting debates (maybe even arguments) with relatives over Christmas this past break. Even if you successfully avoided such spats, you likely had far more restraint than I did and held your tongue on more than a few occasions. From abortion to queer rights to the constant division over the White House’s recent actions, the United States has never been more fractured than in the present moment.
That’s part of why I feel that Jan Komasa and Lori Rosene-Gambino’s new film “Anniversary,” released this past year, is an absolute must-watch for all Americans, no matter which side of the political aisle (if any) you happen to identify with.
“Anniversary” is a powerful, gut-punch allegory to the current state of American politics as a whole, screaming the quiet part out loud. It tells the story of the Taylors, a family walking on eggshells through a political hellscape—desperate for togetherness and connection, yet decaying at the seams with stress and dystopianism.
Starting off with a tenuous gathering in the affluent family’s Washington, D.C. home, we see the Taylor family gathered for the 25th wedding anniversary of parents Ellen (Diane Lane) and Paul (Kyle Chandler). Their children are also present: Cynthia (Zoey Deutch), Birdie (Mckenna Grace), Anna (Madeline Brewer) and Josh (Dylan O’Brien). Josh’s fiancée, Liz (Phoebe Dynevor), and Cynthia’s husband, Rob (Daryl McCormack), have come along as well.
Ellen meets Liz for the first time at this gathering, and while she remains polite and poised, Ellen realizes that Liz was actually a former student of hers at Georgetown University, where she works as a professor. Although this results in some awkwardness at first, we soon learn that Liz actually left Georgetown entirely after Ellen rebuked a set of extremely authoritarian proposals for systems of government that she had laid out in a course paper.
Fast-forward to now, Liz reveals to Ellen that she has written a book (with novelist Josh’s input) titled “The Change: the New Social Contract.” The book’s jacket, as we are shown, features an American flag with the 50 stars moved to the center of the design, purporting to symbolize the unity of a one-party system. In a whisper, she remarks to Ellen, “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
The film then flashes forward two years. In the span of those two years, Liz’s book has exploded in popularity. The Taylors are gathered for Thanksgiving, and comedian Anna’s assistant and partner comments to Liz that the book drove her to reestablish a relationship with her parents. Liz and Josh, now expecting twins, have become much more secure in their ideals, but the rest of the Taylor family is still skeptical about the whole movement—especially after it is endorsed by a company known as the Cumberland Corporation, a megacorporation that appears to function not unlike real-world tech giants such as Amazon and Google.
Flashing forward another year, American society, propelled by the movement based on Liz’s book known simply as “the Change,” has become increasingly totalitarian and dictatorial. An app known as “Tattleware” is installed on almost every American’s phone, and it almost seems as though a hivemind has taken over the country.
Ellen’s disdain for “the Change” has only intensified, with a home security video of her vandalizing her neighbor’s Change-inspired American flag spreading online and resulting in the loss of her job at Georgetown. Anna has been violently attacked by audience members who came to a show where she criticized the Change movement and is now in hiding, and Birdie’s journalist partner, Moses, abruptly leaves the gathering after Josh appears to reference another journalist who was killed as a sort of veiled threat towards him.
At this point, dissent is no longer tolerated in any way, shape or form in the United States. Many, just like Anna, Moses and Ellen, who dare to challenge the movement, are silenced and “disappeared,” often never to be heard from again. The U.S. becomes a bleak, dystopian nightmare, where a kind of violent, dangerous groupthink effect has descended over America.
Ellen threatens Liz after she offers Birdie a virologist position with the Cumberland Corporation, openly telling her that “if you try to groom another one of my children, I will kill you.” Josh, in a private conversation with Paul, offers financial support to Paul’s faltering restaurant—but also begins to ask leading questions in a way that makes Paul suspect that his ulterior motive is to hunt for Anna. Because of this, Paul declines any support from Josh, telling him very matter-of-factly, “I think you should leave this house now.”
Meanwhile, Rob, an environmental justice lawyer taking a case on behalf of the city of Baltimore in partnership with Cynthia, announces that Cynthia is pregnant. However, this announcement proves premature after they get in the car to leave, and Cynthia tearfully tells Rob that she has undergone an abortion, unwilling to expose an innocent child to the current tumultuous state of the world.
This sends Rob into a dangerous rage, physically attacking Cynthia and alternating between screams of expletives while tearing recklessly through the streets at an excessive speed. Eventually, Rob forces Cynthia out of the car, disappearing into the night.
The film then flashes forward yet another year. While these time jumps might make some elements of the plot feel empty on occasion, I’d argue that they actually show the progression of the totalitarian regime in its truest form from a bird’s-eye view, refusing to normalize it or dress it up in any way.
Rob has joined the Change, and Cynthia, having fallen into a sleep aid addiction, lives with Paul and Ellen. Census takers visit the Taylor house (now home only to Paul, Ellen, Cynthia and Birdie), and ask more leading questions intended to threaten the Taylors and find Anna. This only further angers Paul and Ellen, especially after the census takers show them pictures of Birdie at a protest and threaten to send her and them to prison.
While Paul refuses, Ellen, seemingly fed up with the constant fear, decides to give in and sign a form that the census takers give them, designating their house a “Change home” and endorsing the movement. This creates even more of a rift between her and Birdie, who accuses her of selling out.
Another year later, Paul, having visited Anna’s former apartment, has briefly been able to communicate with her through a nanny that Josh and Liz have hired for their twins, who actually turns out to be a spy for a resistance movement. He has also retrieved her dog; however, they remain unsure of his name. Ellen, still hopeful that Anna will eventually return, refuses to give him a placeholder name despite Paul’s incessant, desperate pleas to “just name the dog!”
As the Taylors’ thirtieth wedding anniversary gathering (organized by Josh) begins, Liz, wearing a red dress similar to Ellen’s from five years earlier, pleads with Ellen to intervene with Josh on her behalf, due to incidents that we are not told about. Ellen, still harboring a deep hatred for Liz for tearing her family apart, slaps her across the face and refuses to help.
Liz and Josh play a song—one of Ellen and Paul’s favorites—and ask them if they’d like to dance with each other. While Ellen and Paul (in a visibly forced manner) perform this dance, a costumed clown suddenly appears and enters the yard. After hopping through the garden, the clown enters the house and is revealed to be Anna, at which point we also learn that the dog’s name is Carlin.
Josh, however, having not planned for a clown to arrive, becomes suspicious. He follows Anna-as-clown into the house as she exchanges hushed whispers with a shocked, confused Cynthia. However, just at that moment, the TV suddenly switches to a broadcast announcing some kind of attack at the D.C. branch of the Cumberland Corporation, where Birdie now works. The TV camera cuts to a scene of Birdie standing in front of the building, at which point she performs a suicide bombing on live television.
Ellen, Paul and Anna all become distraught, while Cynthia stabs Josh in the stomach. Cynthia then comes back outside with a blood-soaked knife, and she and Anna run away from the home—we later see Anna dive into the ocean to escape. Change officers place bags over Ellen and Paul, a dark reminder of when they first met in front of René Magritte’s painting “The Lovers,” showing a couple with cloth over their heads.
Josh instructs a Change officer to keep Ellen and Paul together; however, he can no longer control his own forces (which is a fairly clear allegory for ICE). The officers pin him to the floor and whisk all three of them away. The scene closes with Liz standing in front of the pool of blood left by Josh, guarded by a lone remaining officer, staring at an old, happy picture of the Taylors from days past.
“Anniversary” is a haunting film from beginning to end. It is a sobering reminder that fascism and authoritarianism pose a real, prevalent danger to us all, no matter how well-off or well-connected we may be. Many elements of it are eerily reminiscent of America’s political landscape today: Change officers to Federal ICE agents, Change leaders to the current White House Cabinet, census takers to right-wing lawmakers among, alarmingly, many others.
The film is a must-watch for all of us, and, by extension, all Americans in the present day. Hopefully, we can begin to learn from it sooner rather than later and use the lessons it teaches us to prevent our own society from becoming more and more like the one it prophesied.
Sabr Keres-Siddiqui is a junior majoring in political science and minoring in sociology and anthropology
