THE STORY – A family facing mental health struggles and grief discovers healing and laughter through an uplifting yet touching journey together.
THE CAST – Cooper Raiff, Kaitlyn Dever, Hope Davis, Lucy Boynton, David Duchovny & Ariela Barer
THE TEAM – Jay Duplass (Director) & Adam Cayton-Holland (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 102 Minutes
Though “See You When I See You” is Cooper Raiff’s first acting role outside of his own directorial work, it finds him revisiting themes he’s explored extensively in his other work. In his 2025 limited series “Hal & Harper,” a brother and sister reconcile their upbringing as they wrestle with their childhood memories after their mom’s passing. Now, in Jay Duplass’s true story “See You When I See You,” Raiff stars as a comedy writer, Aaron, struggling with PTSD in the wake of his sister’s death. While both projects sift through memory to come to terms with grief, balancing humor and tragedy, their approaches and styles are quite different.
Throughout “See You When I See You,” we keep seeing flashes of Aaron (a slightly fictionalized version of writer Adam Cayton-Holland) as he pulls his car up to his sister Leah’s (Kaitlyn Dever) house, runs up the stairs, and approaches the bathroom door. We can assume what he’ll find behind the door, since we know she had tragically committed suicide. But every time he approaches the door, the movie pulls back into the present, leaving Aaron to fear the memory of that night. This loss has truly messed him up. He can’t focus on his writing, he’s drinking way too much, and screwing up the only good relationship he’s got. This role is a sweet spot for Raiff, who can deftly weave comedy in and around his pain.
As much as Aaron tries to be, he’s not alone in his grief. His mom (Hope Davis) is likewise keeping things in, joining Aaron in not wanting a funeral for Leah, while his dad and older sister (David Duchovny and Lucy Boynton) keep trying to break through with him. In the wake of Leah’s death, he ghosted Camila (Ariela Barer), which he regrets and tries to reconnect. When he’s pushed (or forced) into therapy, he resists, seeing through all of the therapist’s too-easy one-liners. Throughout all of this, his comedic timing is as sharp as ever, but “See You When I See You” doesn’t shy away from the darkness Aaron is spiraling into. Can he find a way out? Does he even want to? Maybe it would be better to join Leah wherever she is. Cayton-Holland’s script finds the throughline of Aaron’s sense of humor, wrapping it together with the devastation of his trauma.
Aaron is almost haunted by too many memories of Leah, and he keeps reliving them, whether he likes it or not. They’ve got tons of great memories, like partying at a bar until way past closing time. But the bad ones, like running up to her closed bathroom door, don’t seem to want to go away. This is a highly stylized concept, as Aaron’s reality shifts from the present day and back into whatever memory he’s running through. Sometimes Raiff and Dever play Aaron and Lead as kids, and sometimes it’s actual child actors. And more than anything, the memories start to rip Leah away from him, plucking her from his mind as she rips through the ceiling, out into space. Duplass is known for his understated, indie comedies grounded in reality. Here, he nails the emotions of this painful story, but the more fantastical elements of the memories feel lackluster. The space elements are at odds with the grounded way these sequences are shot, resulting in a sort of middle ground style. Raiff often simply stares into space, and we transition into a memory. It works, but this idea leaves a little to be desired.
Even if the visual style doesn’t fully land, the emotions the characters are feeling do. “See You When I See You” builds to a tremendous third act that lands with a punch to the heart. Aaron’s confrontation of his own memories and his family’s time of remembrance for Leah are overflowing with authenticity and sadness. How do we heal from a wound like this? Aaron resents that Leah gets to “skip the bad parts,” but he has to actually deal with the hurt and the things that he can’t seem to let go of. Mining the memories leads to intense catharsis: letting them go, not forgetting them, but accepting the past as over, and still leaving a place at the table for Leah, always.
Writer Adam Cayton-Holland adapts his own memoir, “Tragedy Plus Time,” here, and it’s a challenging task. Thankfully, “See You When I See You” finds just the right blend of hilarious, dark wit, and a thoughtful look at how to recover from grief to make something special that will sneak up on you.
