Director Esteban Arango returns to Sundance with his riveting, stylish, and kinetic sophomore feature Ponyboi, which just received its world premiere in the US Dramatic Competition at the 40th edition of the festival. Written, produced by, and starring queer intersex nonbinary Latinx model, actor, and activist River Gallo, the seeds of the film were in their NYU stage production nearly a decade ago, before becoming a NewFest Award-winning short which premiered at Tribeca in 2019. Frequently, shorts that evolve into features can feel overstretched, spreading the elements that made the original works a success a little too thin. But that’s never the case here.
Set on Valentine’s Day in the early 2000s, when Mayor Giuliani (don’t worry his name is only mentioned once) was dealing with the aftermath of 9-11 in New York, across the Hudson river in New Jersey we meet the eponymous Ponyboi (River Gallo). He is a sparky sex worker who has found himself living and working in a 24-hour launderette, Fluff ‘N’ Stuff, owned by his pimp, Vinny (Dylan O’Brian), who is also a smalltime drug dealer with ambitions to be the next Vanilla Ice. Despite the harshness of his life, there’s real warmth and love between Ponyboi and his bff Angel (a fantastic Victoria Pedretti) who work together in the laundry and—unbeknownst to Angel—share the same emotionally and physically abusive man.
When Vinny’s unrestrained greed leads to a fateful night for the ironically named gangster Lucky (Stephen Moscatello), Ponyboi finds himself on the run, being pursued by his boss, wanted by the mob, and with no friends to turn to. Adding to the building pressure—with moments of Safdie brothers levels of tension—are the endless missed calls from Ponyboi’s estranged Salvadoran mother, with news that his father is on his deathbed.
All of which leads up to the arrival of an almost otherworldly figure who might just be Ponyboi’s knight, well cowboy, in a shining Mustang, Bruce (Murray Bartlet); a handsome older man who seems as enamored and intrigued by Ponyboi as Ponyboi is immediately smitten by him. In a film full of indelible, magical movie moments, their meet-cute involves the pair singing lines from Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” to each other, surrounded by coin-operated washing machines. That the Boss is one of NJ’s most famous residents is not coincidental, but one of Ponyboi’s many loving nods to a state that’s been the butt of movie one-liners for years. (In Desperately Seeking Susan for instance, Anna Thomson’s character Crystal says, “I thought you were dead”, to which Madonna’s Susan wryly replies, “No, just in New Jersey.”) In fact, Ponyboi is as much an ode to Jersey, warts-and-all, as Springsteen’s lyrics are. Celebrating the Americana of the state, which Ponyboi acknowledges as the birth place of the all-American diner. NJ is portrayed as just as characterful and atmospheric in its own way as Manhattan has been throughout the history of film.
Arango is clearly a skilled director of actors and the entire cast delivers first-rate work, no matter how small the role, with some inspired casting choices throughout. At the heart of the film is a magnetic performance by River Gallo, conveying this compelling, flawed character’s vulnerability and resilience with every beat. One standout scene sees Ponyboi track down his friend Charlie (Indya Moore) at the bar where she works. Charged with the palpable friction of the unspoken history between them, in a beautifully written monologue, Charlie succinctly shares her journey of accepting her authentic self as a trans woman, it being about how she feels on the inside and sees herself, and not how she might look or be perceived by the outside world. Moore is luminous and brings so much to every second that they are on screen. Imbuing Charlie with wisdom and experience, there is a world-weariness and protective spikiness to the character that’s blended with a tender, gentle quality as she reassures Ponyboi that there is no hurry for him to find out who he is.
Murray Bartlett brings exquisite listening work to Bruce, who says he wants to get to know Ponyboi and hear his story, and we can see in his eyes that he means it. Forget oysters, isn’t being attentively listened to the biggest aphrodisiac there is? Jari Jones brings real vitality to her performance as Ponyboi’s fellow sex worker, Foxxxy, who immediately lights up the screen and quickly establishes a fully realised character. While Aphrodite Armstrong also brings a lot to her two scenes as Gina, who has just started working for Vinny. Ponyboi strikes a matter-of-fact, non-judgmental tone towards sex work, that’s not without humour at times, yet it still presents it as survival work which it doesn’t glamorize.
There is also some impressive character work by Dyan O’Brian, who delivers a nuanced and menacing tour-de-force as Vinny, with the man’s insecurities shining through the slender cracks in his toxic masculinity. He’s not all villain though and there is subtle sympathy, or at least understanding of what has shaped him, in Gallo’s writing. He is a product of the same patriarchal, heteronormative exceptions of what a man should be that Ponyboi has been subjected to since childhood. A cringeworthy rap that Vinny performs privately for Ponyboi is centred around how proud he is of the size of his penis, highlighting what society believes makes a man a man, while Ponyboi’s genitals continue to be focused on as something that defines his gender.
The trauma of Ponyboi’s present situation triggers evocative flashback sequences to his childhood trauma of receiving medical treatment at the request of his Catholic father and being thrown out of the family home at a young age. Ponyboi’s body has been fixated on by his parents, pathologized by medical professionals, fetishized by his clients and monetized by Vinny, who encourages him to start taking estrogen. In a later scene, a morally dubious pharmacist also attempts to persuade Ponyboi to take estrogen rather than the testosterone that he asks for. Wanting Ponyboi to fit in with how they view him instead of what he wants for himself, perhaps to make them feel more secure in their own manhoods rather accepting that they are attracted to a person taking testosterone. Vinny refers to him as his queen and his princess; to his parents, Ponyboi is their son; while he describes himself as a “Jersey girl”.
Cinematographer Ed Wu (who also collaborated with Arango on his debut feature Blast Beat) gives the film striking and atmospheric visuals, using distinctive and contrasting palettes as Ponyboi moves through the different worlds of his life. There are some vibrant neon-drenched tones, reds and blues, and later a naturalist look as morning breaks. The contrast is never jarring though, and there’s an engaging fluidity to the film’s visual language with its style contributing to rather than detracting from Ponyboi’s strong emotional core.
One particularly memorable sequence is Bruce’s arrival at the launderette, captured with a star filter that conveys the light he’s bringing into Ponyboi’s life. While the subsequent scenes featuring Bruce have an air of fantasy about them that is simultaneously gorgeous and has a too-good-to-be-true quality. The visuals often lend a slightly heightened, captivatingly dreamy quality to the film, while Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s brooding, unsettling retro electro score contributes to the building tension. Lucy Hawkins’s detailed costume design and Bri Trischitta’s hair and makeup team inform so much about these characters, down to Ponyboi’s hoop earrings and his shade of green nail polish.
I’ve never encountered a screen protagonist quite like Ponyboi before and it’s exciting to see LGBTQIA+ characters that we rarely, if ever, see on film interact with one another in meaningful ways. While this ultimately healing and uplifting wild ride has the vibe of a road movie, and Bruce, who is driving cross-country back to Vegas offers Ponyboi a lift, he never leaves New Jersey. Instead the journey is an inner one of self-discovery, of someone who is coming closer to figuring out who they are and their place in a world that’s determined to define them. That road movie will happen for Ponyboi as the end credits begin to role and their new life begins.
By James Kleinmann
Ponyboi received its world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 40th Sundance Film Festival. FOX Entertainment Studios’ Tideline & GATHR will release Ponyboi in theaters on Friday, June 27th, 2025. To find a screening near you, head to: ponyboithefilm.com.