Here’s the thing about Drake Doremus: he made one beautiful film thirteen years ago, and we’ve been waiting for him to do it again ever since. Like Crazy wasn’t just a Sundance darling—it was a visceral gut-punch of long-distance longing, the kind of indie romance that felt like it was shot through a crack in your chest. And then… nothing. Well, not nothing. A string of disappointments so consistent you’d think he was trying.
Equals promised dystopian emotion and delivered sterile monotony. Newness wanted to say something about modern love and millennials but ended up saying very little. Endings, Beginnings limped into 2019 with all the tired tropes of a love triangle no one asked for. It’s been over six years since that last misfire, and now Doremus is back with Next Life—a film that might be his final shot at reclaiming relevance.
And honestly? The first look photo feels like a prayer.
The Premise: Jazz, Love, and the Multiverse
Next Life stars Emilia Clarke as Ivy, a jazz singer whose life fractures across parallel realities. In one timeline, she falls for Diego (Édgar Ramírez). In another, she reconnects with Noah, a past love whose future she somehow glimpses. It’s anchored in London’s underground jazz scene—smoky, intimate, raw—the kind of setting that could either elevate Doremus’ romantic instincts or drown them in aesthetic posturing.
The multiverse angle is tricky. It’s been done to death lately, from Everything Everywhere All at Once to Marvel’s endless What Ifs. But here’s where Doremus might have an edge: this isn’t about spectacle. It’s about emotional fractals. The question isn’t what if? It’s who could I have been? That’s a very different kind of sci-fi—quieter, more introspective, and far more fragile.
Clarke and Ramírez didn’t just pretend to be musicians. They recorded an entire album together for the film. That’s commitment. That’s also risky as hell. If the music doesn’t land, the whole thing collapses. Composer Dan Romer—who’s worked with Doremus before—is handling the score, which gives me a sliver of hope. Romer knows how to build emotional architecture without overwhelming it.
Production wrapped in London back in December 2024, and Rocket Science is already shopping it internationally. No official premiere date yet, but I’d bet on Sundance 2026. Where else would it go? SXSW feels too loose. Toronto’s possible, but this screams Park City snow and festival buzz. Doremus needs that Sundance magic again—it’s where he was born, cinematically speaking.
Why This Matters (And Why It Might Not)
Let’s be blunt: Doremus is on thin ice. His post-Like Crazy output has been a masterclass in squandered potential. Each film promised emotional depth and delivered surface-level aesthetics. Beautiful frames, hollow centers. The kind of work that looks great in a festival catalog but evaporates from memory the moment the credits roll.
Next Life could change that. Or it could be another gorgeous disappointment.
The multiverse framing is either brilliant or disastrous. On one hand, it gives Doremus room to explore his favorite theme—doomed romance—through multiple lenses. On the other, it risks becoming a gimmick, a narrative crutch that lets him avoid the hard work of building one emotionally coherent story.
Emilia Clarke is an interesting choice. She’s proven she can carry drama (Me Before You), but she’s also been trapped in big-budget franchise spectacle for most of her career. This feels like her bid for indie credibility, and I respect that. Ramírez is reliably magnetic, but he’s also been underused in Hollywood for years. If Doremus can tap into their chemistry—and if that album isn’t just a marketing stunt—there’s potential here.
But potential isn’t the same as execution. And Doremus has a track record of fumbling the latter.
The First Look: What It Tells Us (And What It Doesn’t)
The first look photo doesn’t reveal much, but it doesn’t need to. It’s moody, atmospheric—Clarke bathed in low light, probably mid-performance, looking both present and distant. That’s the kind of image that works in a teaser campaign but tells you nothing about whether the film actually has a pulse.
Still, there’s something about it. A flicker of the old Doremus. The one who understood that romance isn’t about grand gestures—it’s about the small, unbearable distances between people. If he can tap into that again, if he can make us feel Ivy’s fracture across realities the way we felt Anna and Jacob’s separation in Like Crazy, then maybe this works.
Maybe.
What Needs to Happen
For Next Life to succeed, Doremus needs to do three things:
First: The music has to be real. Not just competent, but emotionally earned. Clarke and Ramírez recording an album is ambitious, but ambition isn’t the same as authenticity. If the jazz feels like set dressing, the whole thing crumbles.
Second: The multiverse can’t be a crutch. It needs to deepen the emotional stakes, not dilute them. We don’t need timey-wimey explanations. We need to feel why Ivy’s split matters, why each reality hurts in its own specific way.
Third: Doremus needs to stop hiding behind aesthetics. His films are beautiful—no one’s disputing that—but beauty without substance is just wallpaper. This needs to ache. It needs to linger. It needs to do what Like Crazy did: make us feel like we’ve lost something we never had.
If he pulls it off, it’s a comeback story. If he doesn’t… well, maybe it’s time to admit that Like Crazy was lightning in a bottle, and we’ve been chasing the glow ever since.
What You Need to Know About ‘Next Life’
Emilia Clarke recorded a full album for the role
This isn’t acting-adjacent singing. Clarke and Ramírez went into the studio and created original material that will appear in the film, anchoring Ivy’s jazz singer identity in something tangible.
Doremus is six years removed from his last feature
Endings, Beginnings came and went in 2019 without much notice. That’s a long gap for an indie director who once had serious momentum. Next Life is either a reset or a final gasp.
The multiverse isn’t Marvel—it’s emotional
This isn’t about variants or cosmic stakes. It’s about fractured identity and roads not taken, the kind of sci-fi that prioritizes interiority over spectacle.
Sundance 2026 feels inevitable
No official word yet, but the timing, the tone, and Doremus’ history all point toward a Park City premiere. If it doesn’t land there, something’s wrong.
FAQ
Is Next Life just another multiverse cash-grab?
Not likely. Unlike Marvel or even Everything Everywhere, this seems to be using the multiverse as an emotional metaphor—parallel lives as a way to explore identity and choice, not as spectacle. Whether Doremus can pull that off is another question.
Why does Doremus’ career hinge on this film?
Because he’s been coasting on Like Crazy for over a decade, and his subsequent films have all underperformed critically. Six years is a long silence. If Next Life flops, it’s hard to see how he regains traction in an already oversaturated indie landscape.
Can Emilia Clarke actually sing?
We’ll find out. She recorded an entire album with Ramírez for the film, so it’s not dubbed or ghost-performed. That’s either bold or reckless, depending on how it sounds when we finally hear it.
What makes this different from Doremus’ other post-Like Crazy films?
Honestly? We don’t know yet. On paper, it has the same risk factors: gorgeous visuals, romantic angst, conceptual ambition. The difference might be in execution—or it might not be a difference at all.
