Stella Fox is having the kind of summer most people would rather forget, and Messy turns that summer into a sharp, self-aware comedy-drama from 2025.
What is Messy about?
After a breakup that upends her sense of direction, Stella relocates to New York and throws herself into a string of romantic entanglements that rarely go the way she hopes. Written, directed by and starring Alexi Wasser, the film treats Stella's stumbles with a wry, unsparing honesty rather than the usual romantic gloss, following her from one disappointing date to the next as she tries to work out what she actually wants versus what she keeps reaching for out of habit. The tone stays close to Stella's own voice throughout, letting her self-awareness do double duty as both the film's humor and its ache.
About the cast
Alexi Wasser writes, directs and stars as Stella, with Adam Goldberg, Dion Costelloe, Ruby McCollister, Merlot Sanders, Thomas Middleditch, Jack Kilmer and Robbie Lyons filling out the circle of dates, friends and exes who pass through her summer.
Context & significance
Messy is an American production from 2025 that sits in the drama-comedy space carved out by candid, first-person breakup stories, where a single narrator's voice carries most of the film's tone. Its focus on one character's chaotic interior life across a compressed timeline, a summer rather than a full year, puts it alongside other recent independent comedies built around a specific, flawed narrator rather than an ensemble. Running a lean 81 minutes, it moves through Stella's dating misadventures at a brisk clip, favoring a string of pointed, quickly sketched encounters over a slower, more conventional relationship arc.
Watching Messy on Ktime
Messy is available on K-Time with Farsi dubbing and Persian subtitles, giving Farsi-speaking viewers the choice of either. Reading about the film here costs nothing, and watching it only requires a free K-Time account login, part of a catalogue shaped around the diaspora's viewing habits.