“It's a comfortable job, if you let it be…” says the trailer. That line says more about indie cinema today than it does about ushering.
You've probably walked past the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Place without noticing it. Everyone does. Sandwiched between tourist glut and cineplex blight, it sits tucked in the shadow of London's multiplex muscle. Grey facade. Manual signboard. Double-bill Tarantino marathons. The kind of place that still sells popcorn in paper bags and lets ushers wear their disdain like epaulettes.
Now, one of its own—Fil Freitas, former usher turned manager turned filmmaker—has decided to make a movie about it. The Regulars is his feature debut, and it does exactly what you'd expect: peers behind the counter, lifts the curtain, and gives a voice to the sardonic souls who keep the reels spinning (metaphorically, of course—everything's digital now, but let's not ruin the mood).
And yes, it's inspired by Clerks. Of course it is.
Freitas doesn't pretend to reinvent anything. That, oddly, works in his favor.
Set over a single day inside the Prince Charles Cinema—filmed there too, thankfully, instead of some slapped-together soundstage—The Regulars follows its ensemble of underpaid movie lovers as they endure customer complaints, passive-aggressive coworker banter, and the numbing repetition of shift life. They argue about films. They quote better ones. They mock the ones they screen. It's meta without being smug, nostalgic without cloying sentiment. That's rare now.
The cast? Unknowns. Real employees, former ushers, mates. A few names if you squint, but that's not the point. This is the kind of film where chemistry matters more than credit. And from the trailer, the rhythm feels lived-in—like staff room gossip between screenings, or tired laughter at 11 p.m. after ushering your fifth screening of Fight Club for the month.
Dusty Keeney co-produces and co-stars. Ricardo Freitas, Lauren Shotton, Sergio Barba, Bronte Appleby, and others round out the group. No one's trying to be the next Timothée Chalamet. Thank God.
There's something strangely comforting about watching a film that doesn't want to be a sensation.
Maybe it's age. Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it's just that I've sat through too many AI-generated Netflix scripts wearing human skin. But The Regulars doesn't chase prestige. It just exists—like the cinema it's shot in. Quiet. Faded. Still standing.
The cinematography, from what we glimpse, embraces the cramped awkwardness of real places. Hallways that feel like basements. Walls peppered with handwritten signs. No sheen. No soft focus to sell a false warmth. Just fluorescent lights and stained carpet. And the ever-present flicker of something better playing just out of reach.
The poster, too, deserves a nod—modest, maybe even drab, but in keeping with the ethos. No marketing department trying to engineer virality. Just a slice of cinema life, wrapped in a style that might've worked in '94.
A few facts before the sentiment dries up:
- Written and directed by Fil Freitas, making his feature debut after the short After the Bell
- Premiered earlier this year in the UK
- Next screening: 2025 Sheffield Film Festival
- UK release date: August 22, 2025, in select cinemas
- No confirmed U.S. release yet
- More info at the official site
So, is it good?
I'll hold that judgment until I've sat through the full thing. Trailers lie. Nostalgia distorts. But I'll say this: The Regulars earns its premise. It doesn't treat the working-class cinephile as a punchline, or worse, a cause. It captures a rhythm that most blockbusters—and most festival darlings—can't: the dull magic of surviving another day doing something you kind of love and mostly tolerate.
Freitas knows this world. You can feel it. It's in the pauses. The eye-rolls. The way no one ever quite finishes their sentence because, frankly, what's the point?
As for the title—The Regulars—that's cleverer than it looks. Because it's not just the staff. It's the customers. The ghosts of old screenings. The movies themselves. Coming back, again and again, to the same dim theater on the edge of Chinatown. Still running. Still flickering.
Even now.
