How do we measure what our life is worth? Is it defined by achievement and societal milestones, or by the quieter act of finding contentment in the days we’re given? Chaperone lingers in that question, resisting easy answers.
Misha (Mitzi Akaha), 29, isn’t interested in reinventing herself or performing success for anyone else. She’s inherited her grandmother’s house, works the box office at a local theater, and appears genuinely satisfied with the life she’s built. Even when her friend and co-worker Kenzie (Jessica Jade Andres) offers her a promotion and increased responsibility, Misha declines without apology. Her parents urge her to sell the house (it’s too big, too impractical), but Misha isn’t looking to optimize her life. She simply wants to exist within it.
That equilibrium fractures when she meets Jake (Laird Akeo), an 18-year-old high school student working as a grocery bagger who assumes she’s his age. What begins as an innocent connection quickly drifts into something more complicated, and the emotional stagnation Misha has been living in curdles into something closer to reckless abandon. Neither is fully aware of the truth at first, and the deception is initially passive, slowly tightening its grip.
Zoe Eisenberg’s assured directorial debut swims in moral ambiguity, but it’s equally concerned with loneliness, inertia, and the quiet despair that can settle in when life feels suspended. Chaperone doesn’t sensationalize its premise; instead, it allows the discomfort to emerge naturally, trusting the audience to sit with their own judgements as the story unravels. Misha remains relatable (even rootable) despite her increasingly questionable decisions. She’s deeply flawed, love her or hate her, but recognizably human.
The film never instructs you on how to feel, and that restraint is its greatest strength. You’re meant to be uncomfortable, but you’re also asked to sit with empathy rather than condemnation. It’s a rare, refreshing perspective that lives in a grounded world. Particularly as a story anchored in a woman’s interior life, it values honesty over absolution. Zoe crafts something truly unique with this film. It also has a great score from Taimane Gardner and beautiful shots in the Hawaiian land.
Akaha is a star. She navigates Misha’s contradictions with natural charisma and emotional precision. It’s a performance marked by honesty and humility, confirming her and Eisenberg as talents to watch.
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