Vague Visages’ The Stress Is Killing Me review contains minor spoilers. Tom Carroll’s 2024 movie on Amazon features Grayson Berry, Carly Christopher and April Hartman. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

School or college reunions are a hotbed of mortifying social situations, and Tom Carroll’s The Stress Is Killing Me revels in this cringy discomfort. The 2024 film brings together a group of former college classmates for a weekend of reminiscing and wine drinking in New Mexico, and the protagonists’ nostalgia takes a strange turn when they realize their jaded, over-worked adult lives are a far cry from their adolescent dreams. There are some believable performances in Carroll’s production, but with an eight-member ensemble cast jostling for audience attention, the film struggles to give any of them the attention that would generate real depth. Still, there’s still some fun to be had in The Stress is Killing Me, thanks to a game cast who throw themselves into the film’s cheesy, slapstick comedy.

The Stress Is Killing Me opens with eight 30-something college friends gathering at a sun-kissed holiday mansion nearly 20 years after graduation. Carroll introduces Kiki (Carly Christopher), a hot-shot lawyer from Washington D.C. who dreads coming face-to-face with her old college crush, a marketing executive named Jason (Grayson Berry). Before the audience can absorb any crackles of sexual tension, the writer-director shifts away from the potential lovebirds to introduce a dizzying number of other colorful characters. The line-up includes an overworked medical doctor (Crystal Thomas as Donna) and a graspingly ambitious restaurant owner (Barry Landers as Will), along with an exhausted married couple with three kids (Theron LaFountain and April Hartman as Todd and Sue, respectively).

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Despite the fast pace of The Stress Is Killing Me’s opening scenes, Caroll’s dialogue allows for a rapid, surface-level understanding of the characters’ lives and passions. The conversations are peppered with teasing barbs as they suss out each other’s professions (Jason describes his job in marketing as “f**king with people’s heads). And despite high-flying careers, no one in the group has found joy or artistic passions in their adult lives. Kiki yearns to become a yoga instructor, and Donna wants to be an artist.  Another friend wants to be a therapist, while another, for some reason, wants to be a priest. On a whim, they decide to ditch their careers for a week of living out these dream jobs in the mansion.

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The main strength of The Stress is Killing Me is the highly believable group chemistry between each actor. The cast is strong, as Carroll brought together new or emerging performers who, while still building their careers in indie features, are able to bring out their characters’ vivid personalities. Scenes between Kiki and Jason generate a convincing romantic tension that drives the film’s narrative. The other performers, including the aforementioned Thomas –an actor with smaller credits in fan fiction short films like Star Wars: Rendezvous (2023) — as the sarcastic Donna, can pull dryly funny moments out of their characters, regardless of the screen time.

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Yet with so many overlapping strands, The Stress is Killing Me doesn’t manage to bring the plot together in any satisfying way. The film teases viewers with glimpses into the characters’ dreams, allowing for an understanding of their frustrated creative aspirations. However, the screenplay never digs deep enough to make one truly invest in any of the character stories. The light-hearted banter quickly descends into self-pity in the opening scenes, and there are plenty of clichéd moments in the screenplay. As Kiki moans out loud, “I went to law school to change the world; now, I help deadbeats get off.” This moaning about frustrated, boring lives quickly wears thin, as these are well-paid, high-functioning adults who come across people stuck in detention for 20 years.

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Aside from Kiki’s unrequited love for Jason, the backstories of the characters are skimmed during The Stress is Killing Me. For instance, Todd and Sue, a married couple, find themselves navigating a high-stakes moment in their relationship, working through their issues with the help of Marcie (Lisa Lucas), with her amateur therapist hat on her head. These counseling scenes are sympathetic, delving into what the couple has lost and gained since becoming parents. And the film frequently turns sharply into a completely different register as Todd shifts gears to temporarily pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker. He ropes the others into his improvised film project, complete with offbeat costumes and broad slapstick humor. Todd becomes a different character within these sequences, and the tonal whiplash between the counseling scenes and the comedy of his cinematic ambitions creates a jarring contrast.

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By the end of Carroll’s frustrating and stylistically unambitious film, it seems that there was a deeper, more interesting story just out of reach. The Stress is Killing Me sticks, more or less, to a single location, and the cinematography is characteristic of this type of social comedy, with bright visuals and an eye-catching location choice. Carroll’s dialogue is light-hearted and cheesy, and the film will pass away an afternoon for cinematic escapists. Ultimately, however, The Stress is Killing Me suffers from a thin plot and too many characters. Carroll has all the right ingredients, but there is no spice or true originality, as the comedy fails to maximize the potential for either laughs or character exploration.

The Stress Is Killing Me released theatrically on February 28, 2025 and digitally on March 7, 2025.

Christina Brennan (@bigloudscreams) is a UK-based freelance writer with bylines in Little White Lies, Flux Magazine and Filmhounds. She has a soft spot for all types of horror movies and is currently writing a book on George Sluizer’s thriller The Vanishing (due to be released in 2025).

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