As if responding to a dare to see if she has the range, Swiss director Pietra Biondina Volpe follows up her heart-stopping emergency room thriller “Late Shift” with about as quiet a film as possible in “Frank & Louis.” This drama about the bond between an aging inmate succumbing to dementia and a younger incarcerated man looking for redemption by caring for him is a remarkably somber and still effort. But that restraint quickly turns from virtue to vice when all the time spent in quiet contemplation reveals just how lightweight this two-hander is.
READ MORE: Sundance 2026 Preview: 30 Films We Can’t Wait To See
The film loudly announces its silent streak by beginning with an extended wordless sequence. As Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Frank undergoes the booking intake process in a new carceral facility, the actor sparingly reveals the character’s solitude after years of humiliation by the system. By the time an employee of the prison lists off his rap sheet, including a stint in solitary confinement 17 years prior for assaulting another inmate, it’s nothing that the scars borne on his soul have not already made clear.
As he approaches another appearance before the parole board, Frank locates an opportunity to increase his odds of release. To demonstrate his rehabilitation, he volunteers for a program that pairs younger inmates as informal caregivers for those who are beginning to decline in cognitive ability. These men become their brothers’ keepers up until the point that they deem it necessary to send them to hospice.
The program results in such odd couples as an imprisoned neo-Nazi receiving care support from a Hispanic man, so the stoic Frank gets it relatively easy with Rob Morgan’s cantankerous Louis. Their evolving relationship unfolds fairly predictably. Louis resists any helping hand lest it mean he admits that he can no longer attend to his own needs. Frank stays the course in performing his duties, first out of self-interest, then out of genuine attentiveness and love.
Though “Frank & Louis” offers little institutional critique, it’s clear that spending decades in America’s prison system has affected both the titular characters. That toll becomes most evident within the narrow band of emotions each character operates within, especially Frank. As a result, Kingsley Ben-Adir essentially has to create his performance in miniature. Minimalism proves effective when Volpe’s focus in a scene draws attention to his exhaustion from years of trying to prove his capacity for change.
Support independent movie journalism to keep it alive. Sign up for The Playlist Newsletter. All the content you want and, oh, right, it’s free.
But far too often, her script (co-written with Esther Bernstorff) skates on the surface of Frank’s character. These silences reveal a character sorely lacking in interiority, and there’s only so far Ben-Adir’s rigorously executed simplicity can go to overcome the deficit at this structural level. The film offers no details about who he is beyond the crime, which undercuts the entire premise of “Frank & Louis.” No one is just their worst day, but Volpe offers no details that expand the range of her protagonist’s humanity.
Volpe spends a lot of time circling the obvious in both character dynamics and narrative direction. When coupled with the generally reserved tonality, a certain sluggishness sets in once the film’s basic trajectory becomes evident. “Frank & Louis” slips into being a film that’s observed and admired from a distance, not experienced emotionally.
As the inevitable end for the dementia-addled patient nears, however, Volpe does locate a pulse within the material once again. A long-held grudge against Louis by someone whose brother he once wronged gives it a sporadic feel like a prison thriller. Further, the character’s increasingly less inhibited state provides Rob Morgan with the opportunity to be more expressive in his tender vulnerability. Even when the material inches toward weepy territory, the veteran actor never resorts to easy sentimentality.
But recovering that sense of propulsion within “Frank & Louis” requires Volpe to break the aesthetic contract established at the start. At the jump, the bare-bones visuals and carefully calibrated sonic texture give viewers space to navigate the new setting alongside Frank. That sparseness gives way to mawkish string music, which blares out exactly how the filmmaking team would like a moment to land.
For a while, it’s as if Volpe foils her ascetic approach to directing the project against the sentimentality of the story. That discordance is intriguing while it holds, but it doesn’t. Ironically, “Frank & Louis” ends up matching one element of its premise quite well. For a story that puts dementia at its center, this sure is a forgettable film. [C+]
Follow along for all of our coverage from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival here.