'A Tree Fell in the Woods' Review: Infidelity, Moonshine, and Midlife Disillusionment in Nora Kirkpatrick’s Witty But Uneven Debut
'A Tree Fell in the Woods' JEFF LEEDS-COHN
We saw it, and it saved us from the rest of our lives.
In A Tree Fell in the Woods, Nora Kirkpatrick's debut feature, the age-old question rears its head: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? In this case, it not only makes a sound—it detonates a chain reaction that lays bare the quiet devastations of two faltering relationships. Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, the ensemble dramedy tackles infidelity, repression, and personal stagnation, packaged as a holiday cabin getaway gone spectacularly awry. Anchored by strong performances from Alexandra Daddario, Josh Gad, Ashley Park, and Daveed Diggs, the film is less interested in the melodrama of betrayal than in the quiet, festering disappointments of modern adulthood.
The premise is deceptively simple. Two married couples retreat to a picturesque cabin in the snowy woods for what Mitch (Josh Gad) calls their annual "Christmas New Year’s thingamajigy weekend." While out exploring, Mitch and best friend Debs (Alexandra Daddario) narrowly avoid being crushed by a falling tree—an absurd and near-deadly moment that sets the tone for a story driven by both randomness and revelation. But their exhilaration is short-lived; upon returning to the house, they glimpse through a frosted window the shocking sight of their respective spouses—Melanie (Ashley Park) and Josh (Daveed Diggs)—in the throes of an affair.
Rather than ignite a cinematic explosion of confrontation, Kirkpatrick's script smartly chooses emotional fallout over plot twists. Mitch and Debs quietly agree to keep the betrayal to themselves, at least initially, letting the tension simmer beneath the surface. But a snowstorm soon traps the foursome inside the house, leaving them nowhere to run from the boiling pot of resentment, guilt, and frustration. What unfolds over the next 100 minutes is a boozy, philosophical carousel of monologues, arguments, tearful apologies, and passive-aggressive dinners, all marinated in a mysterious batch of moonshine found in the cabin’s basement—an odd and occasionally magical plot device that adds just a hint of surrealism to the grounded drama.
Kirkpatrick—best known for her work on Daisy Jones & The Six—lets the characters unravel in naturalistic, often overlapping conversations that reveal their deep fractures. Her decision to avoid a clear villain or hero allows the narrative to explore the complexities of betrayal and forgiveness without reducing anyone to caricature. That said, not all characters are drawn with equal nuance. Mitch, played by Gad in a showy, polarizing performance, is portrayed as the quintessential "nice guy"—a man whose bitterness simmers beneath performative selflessness. He resents both his wife and his best friend, but his real fury seems directed inward, at the life he’s built and the person he’s become. His despair is palpable, but his martyrdom grows tiresome.
Park, meanwhile, is a revelation as Melanie. Her portrayal of a woman suffocating under the weight of an idealized but hollow marriage is the film’s emotional centerpiece. She balances humor with vulnerability, showing how her choices stem not from malice but from a desperate need to reclaim agency in a life that feels prescribed. Her arc, while not redemptive, is at least deeply human. Diggs' Josh is less well-defined. For much of the film, he remains an enigma, overshadowed by the others’ louder personalities. When he finally breaks his silence late in the film, his confession about creative insecurity and emotional paralysis arrives too late to fully resonate, though it does offer a flicker of depth.
Daddario’s Debs is the moral anchor, yet her character, too, is trapped—by the failure of her second novel, by a marriage she no longer believes in, and by the paralysis of being “not old, not young” in an era that prizes novelty and certainty. Her simmering anger is a stand-in for a generational disillusionment. She is the writer who can no longer write, the partner who can no longer forgive, the adult who can no longer pretend she has it all figured out.
The moonshine, which could have been an ill-advised quirk, ends up serving as a metaphor for clarity through distortion. The drunken episodes—hazy, strange, occasionally poignant—strip away social niceties and allow for brutal honesty. It’s during these surreal digressions that the film finds its voice: not in shouting matches, but in half-whispered realizations about love, identity, and the ever-widening gap between who we are and who we wanted to be.
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While A Tree Fell in the Woods doesn’t reinvent the relationship dramedy, it offers moments of startling resonance. Kirkpatrick captures something acutely real about a particular generational malaise: the slow, often unnoticed drift away from dreams and toward lives that feel increasingly foreign. These characters are not in crisis because of one affair, but because that affair is a symptom of a larger, quieter death—the loss of possibility.
By the final act, the snow has stopped falling, but the cold remains. There are no neat resolutions or grand reconciliations. Just four people, stripped of illusions, trying to figure out what, if anything, comes next. The tree has fallen. Whether anyone heard it is beside the point. The ground still shakes.
RATING: ★★★★☆
A Tree Fell in the Woods
Festival: Tribeca Film Festival (Spotlight Narrative)
Cast: Josh Gad, Alexandra Daddario, Ashley Park, Daveed Diggs, Kevin Pollak
Director: Nora Kirkpatrick
Screenwriter: Nora Kirkpatrick
Sales Agent: CAA
Run Time:1 hour 40 minutes
