Green Heron it is not a mystery in the traditional sense. There is no crime to be solved or killers to be caught. Instead, it explores a family slowly falling apart and a little girl who quietly takes everything around her – especially her older brother (Edik Beddoes), who seems like a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment.
Sounds like drama, right? Well, Green Heron that’s it, too. There are many things: reflection on memory, the image of mental illness and the power of conversation to connect people and events of the past.
That’s what makes 2026 the best movie I’ve seen so far this year. Small in tradition but big in the emotions it stirs up inside you, it’s a deeply personal and highly personal film about how we can never truly know our family, especially the ones that make us the most happy and the most scared.
What is the ‘Blue Heron’ about?
Edik Beddoes at Blue Heron
Janus FilmsThe first part of the Green Heron is set in the 1990s, as it follows a young family as they settle into their new home in British Columbia. Through the eyes of a pre-teen daughter Sasha (Eylul Guven), we see that something is wrong with our older brother, Jeremy (Beddoes). He is aloof and very quiet, always walking behind everyone and disobeying mom and dad’s orders. Little by little, a bleak picture emerges: Jeremy has some mental problems that the parents have tried to fix, but to no avail.
Sure, 2025 had a lot of amazing movies, but what about a great list full of movies that actually got us talking — not the ones that made a lot of awards season noise? Don’t get rid of it: Frankenstein, Hamnet, One Battle After Another and the rest of the Oscar-buzz crowd are totally worth their time, but sometimes. […]
The second part of the Green Heron set decades later, with an older Sasha (Amy Zimmer) who now works as a social worker. He is still trying to solve the mystery of his brother’s behavior and understand the impact he has had on him and the rest of his family. What happened to Jeremy? What made him act the way he did? And how did the family deal with someone who always seemed to be a stranger rather than a relative?
What makes ‘Blue Heron’ 1 of the best movies of 2026 so far?
Eylul Guven at Blue Heron
Janus FilmsWriter and director Sophy Romvari it answers some of these questions, but not all. One of the main points of the Green Heron that some mysteries cannot be fully explained, only dealt with, and that is the case with Jeremy. All these years, Sasha is still frustrated by her brother’s behavior and that he seemed to be a prisoner in his own body.
I’ll be honest — I was nervous about the moment this important thing was going to be heard. We’ve seen disturbed little boys like Jeremy in a lot of media before, and they’re almost always portrayed as villains or boogeymen who commit some act of shocking violence, like a school shooting or murder.
Not so with Green Heronwho is more interested in Jeremy’s behavior and his family’s reaction to it than in revealing what Jeremy actually does – if he does anything at all. This is it it is possible the violence that Jeremy commits, with his anti-social behavior and his despicable threats that seem to come out of nowhere, puts everyone on edge and causes his mother and father to seek professional help. But even their therapist doesn’t really know anything, they are left with a troublesome child they love, but who can be dangerous to them and their other children.
You Forgive But Don’t Forget
In many interviews, Romvari admitted that many factors Green Heron they are autobiographical. That makes sense when you watch it, as the film’s ambiguity has the power of truth behind it. Towards the end of the film, the older Sasha confronts her memory of Jeremy head-on.
When was the last time you were scared while watching a scary movie? And I mean really freaked out, the kind of freaked out that stays with you long after the movie is over. A24’s new horror film, Undertone, does just that. The Canadian film, now in theaters across the country, is catching up to several other films […]
In a sequence that involves some narrative of the filling of gaps and simple editing, Romvari expands our knowledge of him and gives him a moment of grace and forgiveness. There is more to Jeremy than Sasha, or the audience, knows, but what is left behind is a picture of a son, a brother and a boy who was a victim of his behavior just as much as his family was a victim of his behavior.
Green Heron is playing in theaters right now.
