By Genevieve Dammery

Some films ask to be understood, and some films demand to be felt. Julie Pacino’s I Live Here Now is firmly the latter. Pacino’s debut feature explores trauma, womanhood, and fractured identity through a blend of psychological horror and surrealism, combined with stunning visuals and stellar acting.

At the film’s centre is Rose (Lucy Fry), a struggling actress whose already precarious life is thrown into turmoil when she discovers she is pregnant. The timing of this is unfortunate. Rose has just been offered an opportunity that could finally give her career the breakthrough that she has been waiting for, but she’s always believed pregnancy to be an impossibility for her. After some reflection – and a not so pleasant encounter with her boyfriend (Matt Rife) and his overbearing mother (Sheryl Lee) – Rose retreats to a strange hotel, the Crown Inn, and finds herself trapped in a world where time, memory, and reality begin to collapse into each other.

From early on Pacino shows us that this is not going to be a straightforward horror story. The Crown Inn is quickly established as an extension of Rose’s subconscious: a fever dream constructed from fragments of memory and fear. Corridors twist, rooms are uncanny, and the people Rose encounters seem to exist somewhere between characters, memories, and manifestations of herself.

The film wears its influences with pride. There are echoes of David Lynch, giallo, and tales such as Alice in Wonderland, but I Live Here Now is not merely a collection of references. Pacino uses the visual language of these genres and stories to explore something intensely personal: what happens when a woman begins to lose control over her own body and her sense of herself? And more importantly, perhaps, what does it take to find herself again?

Lucy Fry is mesmerising throughout. Rose could easily have become an opaque vessel for the film’s symbolism, but Fry gives her a rawness that keeps the surreal narrative emotionally grounded. Her performance becomes progressively more physical as Rose’s grip on reality deteriorates, culminating in moments that feel like a full-body confrontation of everything her character has been forced to suppress throughout her life. Madeline Brewer is also extraordinary as Lillian, one of the mysterious characters Rose encounters at the motel. Lillian is seductive, threatening, and familiar all at once.

And visually, I Live Here Now is astonishing. Shot on film, Pacino creates a world of sickly-sweet colours, sumptuous textures, and sometimes grotesque imagery. The Crown Inn is both beautiful and repulsive; at times it feels like a living organism swallowing Rose whole. There is a tactile quality to the filmmaking, as though every surface has been designed to make the viewer slightly uncomfortable, and yet each scene is a feast for the senses.

Beyond the surrealism and body horror, however, is a deeply human story about memory, trauma, and the difficulty of separating who we are from what has happened to us. Pacino clearly shows the ways trauma can become embedded in the body, and how it can subsequently resurface in strange and unexpected forms.

I Live Here Now does not offer the comfort of a neat explanation for everything that Rose experiences. Instead, it trusts the audience to sit with uncertainty, to interpret its symbols, and to experience the same instability that consumes her. It is a film that requires you to walk away and think about what you have watched, and then research it, and then watch the film again.

For a debut feature, Pacino’s ambition is truly remarkable. I Live Here Now is messy, excessive, and bewildering, but it is also entirely assured in its strangeness. Pacino clearly understands that a film this uncompromising will not be for everyone, but rather than sanding down the edges to make it more conventional, she embraces the risk of alienating some viewers in order to find the ones it will truly resonate with.

Ultimately, I Live Here Now feels assembled from fragments of deeply personal trauma and memory: grotesque and visceral yet beautiful, uncomfortable yet hypnotic, and brought to life by performances that are impossible to look away from. Whatever Pacino chooses to explore next, I Live Here Now makes it clear that she is a filmmaker worth watching.

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