Anxious.

Official Selection, 2024 Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival

Anxiety never looked more fabulous! Ferociously fashionable, overwhelmingly colorful, and refreshingly humane, ANXIOUS. follows Ruby, a thirty-year-old woman who experiences an out-of-control anxiety attack that conjures Wonderland in Orange County and two flamboyant alternate Rubies: blunt straightforward nightmare Rye and posh valley queen Rubina. The two alternately help (or sabotage) Ruby as she struggles to be her cousin’s maid-of-honor or avoids a crush or convenes an illegal support group when her therapist is laid off.

Blending elements of narrative, dream worlds, and monologues on mental health, ANXIOUS.’s flamboyant hybrid fantasy-reality blends effortlessly with Ruby’s treks in Garden Grove. Whimsical in its presentation and heavily inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, ANXIOUS. is a buffet of chaos, energy, and the imagination, yet constantly grounded by anxiety as it shifts between Ruby’s mission to be ‘normal’ and her extravagant interiority.

For her debut feature film, director Nida Chowdhry is a force to be reckoned with, not only because of her triple camp performance as Ruby, Rye, and Rubina, but also as writer, producer, director of photography, and costume designer. This dark comedy tackles anxiety with a vivaciousness that maintains the deeply personal with an unapologetic fierceness, leaving one reimagining how we dance with our own inner world and the external circumstances surrounding us.

– Alissa Tu