COMING SOON

With Solitaire, I set out to explore the frayed edges of the American Dream. The places where rusted town signs and boarded-up windows stand as relics of once-hopeful communities. Shot in rural Utah with a Utah-based crew and cast, the film is more than a crime drama. It's a story told through the eyes of those left behind to pay the price for a dream that has been hollowed out, franchised, and reduced to a slogan.

In a society addicted to success and terrified of failure, Solitaire taps into the darker current of our national psyche. What are we willing to sacrifice to keep the lights on, to stay upright, to maintain the illusion of control? Its themes, grief, power, moral compromise, and survival, mirror the quiet tragedies unfolding in small towns across America.

Narratively, I drew inspiration from Hamlet. Like the Prince of Denmark, Max returns to a home he no longer recognizes. His mother is gone, his inheritance hijacked, and his uncle is now in control. But where Hamlet explored rot from within, Solitaire unfolds in a world already gutted, economically, spiritually, and communally. The setting doesn’t just frame the characters’ descent, it mirrors it.

Stylistically, the film draws on the influence of John Cassavetes, Abbas Kiarostami, and Wong Kar-wai, among others. From Cassavetes, I learned to find truth in every frame, to capture raw, shifting emotions that can turn on a dime. From Kiarostami, I took the patience to sit with silence, to live fully inside a moment, and allow simplicity to become profound. And from Wong Kar-wai, I borrowed mood. The color, tone, and emotional atmosphere that lingers long after the scene ends.

There’s no nostalgia here, only the residue of struggle. Solitaire is a meditation on what remains when the dream collapses, and survival is all that’s left.