Poetic License had its World Premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Row K Entertainment will release it at a later date.

Every once in a while, a debut film arrives that feels like it already knows exactly what it wants to be. Maude Apatow’s Poetic License is one of those rare first features — assured, moving, and refreshingly human. Known for her acting and being the daughter of comedy filmmaker Judd Apatow and actress Leslie Mann, Maude steps behind the camera, delivering a film that feels both intimate and inviting, a story about finding your voice that never resorts to clichés. Led by a talented trio of Mann, Cooper Hoffman, and Andrew Barth Feldman (with the former two giving the best performances of TIFF), Poetic License is a fun comedy that is sure to bring back the kind that made the Apatow name a household one.

The movie follows Liz (Mann in a career-best performance), a once-promising therapist who’s drifted into a new city with her husband and daughter, Dora (Method Man and Nico Parker, respectively). She’s uncertain about Dora’s future, as she’s preparing to be an empty nester. Looking to reinvigorate her life in her new setting, Liz joins a poetry college course and befriends Ari and Sam (Hoffman and Feldman, respectively), two boys also enrolled in the class.

What unfolds is a lighthearted comedy about relationships and reinventing oneself. What makes Poetic License click is its welcoming tone. Apatow never pushes too hard for laughs or tears; instead, she lets Raffi Donatich’s script breathe. Scenes are allowed to feel quippy, characters are given space to have fun, and the film finds weight in the little details: the sentimentality a parent has for their grown child, or the awkward pause that follows after someone reads a piece that cuts too close to home. The result is a film that feels lived-in, one that understands life is as much about hesitation and failure as it is about triumph.

Mann gives a beautifully restrained performance. Liz is shy, yet tries too hard to appeal to Dora and spend as much time with her as possible. Her interactions with the entire cast are wonderful, and Mann knows when to go for a laugh or execute a funny moment. She captures that hesitation without ever turning the character into a cliché of a lost soul. Her dynamics with Hoffman and Feldman are equally great, as they make for a dynamic duo.

The supporting cast fills out the workshop with warmth and personality. Hoffman, in particular, is hilarious and proves how talented a thespian he is. Like Maude Apatow, he’s labeled as a nepo-baby with his father being the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman. However, not once since his breakthrough in 2021’s Licorice Pizza has Hoffman's talent been doubted by audiences. He adopts his father's dramatic approach while also developing his own method for comedic work. In other words, he fits right into an Apatow comedy that Maude picks up on no problem. Feldman also steals laughs as Sam, whose dorkiness is charming as ever. Together, our three main characters create a believable, mismatched trio, the kind of oddball group that feels instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever joined a class hoping to find a new direction/change.

That’s not to say the film is perfect. The story may seem odd as it delves into territories similar to those of The Graduate or any other movie centered on a relationship between a young man and a much older woman. Don’t get it twisted, as Poetic License is no rom-com. Rather, it’s a movie about friendships in the unlikeliest places with dashes of romantic tension. But this is a minor bump in an otherwise remarkably strong debut. In a day and age where movies of that nature are often frowned upon by audiences, Apatow and company ensure that Poetic License doesn’t go down that dark alley.

What makes Poetic License stand out from other coming-of-age or unlikely-friendship comedies is its refusal to wrap everything up neatly. There’s no big contest, no sudden discovery of genius, no soaring finale. Instead, the film closes on a note of quiet persistence, suggesting that the act of sharing life and embracing the unknown is, in itself, a victory. It’s a refreshingly grounded approach, one that feels truer to life than a tidy ending to a raunchy 2000s comedy. With Poetic License, Maude Apatow has made the leap from performer to filmmaker with surprising ease. The movie is tender without being sentimental, funny without undercutting the drama, and deeply moving without ever resorting to sentimentality. More than anything, it feels honest. In a crowded movie landscape, that’s no small achievement.

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