Floating Carousel (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Oct 16
2 min read

FLOATING CAROUSEL (2025)

Starring Lucy Powers, Delilah Napier, Gus Birney, Michael Cyril Creighton, Jessica Hecht, Dylan Baker, Julian Cihi, Reg Rogers, Elsie Hewitt, Geneva Carr, Catherine Curtin, Jon Rudnitsky, Matt Walker, Brittany Bradford, Sean Grandillo, Ruby McCollister, Sam Vartholomeos, Aaron Serotsky, Charles Justo, Nate Richman, Caroline Baniewicz and Joe Penczak.

Screenplay by Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers.

Directed by Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers.

Distributed by Drama House Pictures. 101 minutes. Not Rated.

If you’ve ever swiped right and immediately regretted it, Floating Carousel might feel less like a movie and more like a fever dream you once had after a bad Tinder date and too much boxed wine. Directed by co-stars Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers, this NYC-set dramedy is a kaleidoscope of dating disasters, identity crises, and the kind of existential dread that only a professional cuddler can soothe.

The film assembles a delightfully dysfunctional ensemble: a Gender Studies grad student, a sugar baby in denial, a cabaret hopeful, a serial philanderer, and yes, a professional cuddler. It’s like Sex and the City got drunk with Girls and woke up in a dystopian rom-com. Each character is orbiting their own emotional black hole, yet somehow, they keep colliding in ways that are messy, magnetic, and occasionally profound.

Character actors Jessica Hecht and Dylan Baker pop up with intriguing supporting roles. Gus Birney has a funny cameo as a disappointed blind date – a walking contradiction of vulnerability and bravado, navigating hookup culture like it’s a war zone with glitter grenades.

And yet even the loser dates – like a serial blind dater (Julian Cihi) who works each night out as a pre-scripted scrimmage of love, or a rich older guy (Reg Rogers) who uses guilt with his girlfriends with the accuracy of a scalpel – are given some redeeming qualities eventually, even when you just want to get away from them.

The writing is sharp, self-aware, and unafraid to lean into the absurdity of modern intimacy. You’ll laugh, cringe, and maybe text your ex just to feel something.

Visually, Floating Carousel is a mood board of millennial malaise: neon-lit apartments, subway confessions, and cabaret stages that feel more like confessionals. The soundtrack pulses with indie angst and cabaret flair, underscoring the emotional whiplash of trying to find love – or at least a decent cuddle – in a city that never stops spinning.

Let’s call it what it is: a chaotic, charming, and occasionally cathartic carousel ride through the emotional funhouse of urban dating. It’s not always pretty, but it’s honest. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

Jay S. Jacobs