Two aging figures grapple with their waning influence and current status, a struggle juxtaposed against the opposite life perspectives and timelines of their younger counterparts. That’s the core premise of Only What We Carry, the latest film from Welsh director Jamie Adams. There’s this particularly corrosive Generation X style of filmmaking that manifests as mumblecore, dramedy-ish rumination on growing up. It feels like the desperate, dying breath of an old generation of filmmaking, particularly through Adams’s lens in this film.
Only What We Carry Tribeca Review
Simon Pegg and Sofia Boutella in Only What We Carry, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 6, 2026.
As a Generation Z film critic, I have a perspective that is at odds with the current crop of filmmakers. They’re always one generation ahead of me, and with each new era, there’s a dying breed of film genre. This is manifested clearly in Only What We Carry. The film features four strong performances: Simon Pegg, who takes an excellent dramatic turn; Quentin Tarantino, who continues to be an excellent actor; Sofia Boutella; and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Even though it’s packaged within a brief 92-minute runtime, it feels like an overly long, dull experience.
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This disconnect can come from so many different things. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m young and I don’t understand the desolation of being a 50-plus-year-old man reconnecting with a former lover. Maybe it’s a class thing where I can’t connect with a couple of rich directors dealing with their relationships with their much less wealthy performers. Whatever the reason, it all feels out of touch.
It’s one of those films that’s well-made from an objective standpoint. The production technicalities are good, and the acting is technically fine, but at the same time, it feels doomed to never resonate with anybody through its basic plot or its cloying sense of desperation to connect. It sucks to watch a movie like this. There’s something so unfortunate about seeing a film that’s technically proficient, written and directed the way I was taught in school. It looks great and draws out neat performances. Yet the single highest barrier in film criticism and general film watching is empathy, and Only What We Carry doesn’t elicit an ounce of it from this particular critic.
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sofia Boutella, and Lizzy McAlpine in Only What We Carry, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 6, 2026.
Sometimes I feel like I just miss the boat when I’m watching these movies. I wish I could connect with the stories that seem to resonate with others, but sometimes I simply don’t. Not every movie will work for everyone, and it’s easy to accept when you just aren’t the target audience for a specific film. However, creating something that resonates so exclusively with a highly specific, isolated audience is generally not a good thing. A truly great film should bridge that gap and invite outside viewers to understand its perspective. Instead, Adams builds a wall around its narrow demographic, leaving anyone who isn’t an aging, wealthy creative completely out in the cold.
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For Only What We Carry, though, this is a film that feels like it’s only evoking the experiences of a tired, overrepresented group of whiny boomers and young Gen Xers. On the surface, it tries to be profound and harrowing, but it rings hollow like the ramblings of a politician desperately out of touch with his voter base. Stories of disconnection aren’t inherently interesting.
Is Only What We Carry worth watching?
There has to be some extra hook with movies like this to appeal to other people, because drama for the sake of drama is boring. Is it interesting that this film was shot over six days? No. Is it interesting that most of the dialogue was improvised? Not exactly. To some people, that might be fascinating, but to this critic, it isn’t. I wish I could connect, but I can’t, and at the end of the day, I guess that’s all that matters.
Only What We Carry premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs from June 3 – 14, 2026.
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