Hamptons International Film Festival Showcases Dynamic Female Actors

The opening week of the 33rd Hamptons International Film Festival presented the usual cornucopia of cinematic riches. Full-length features from the most daring and provocative filmmakers and studios in the world shared the spotlight with a formidable collection of shorts and documentaries. And as always, a thoughtfully curated slate of panel discussions and Q&As rounded out the program.

This year’s HIFF was notable for a lot of reasons. But one thing that stood out – especially during the festival’s first few days – was a group of young female actors working at the height of their powers.

Opening weekend alone featured performances by Elizabeth Olsen, Sydney Sweeney, Jessie Buckley and other leading ladies that were so detailed, so riveting and so unflinchingly human that they felt like a master class in state-of-the-art film acting.

Elizabeth Olsen in Eternity

The festival kicked off on Friday night with the United States premiere of A24’s Eternity. Directed and co-written by David Freyne and starring Olsen and Miles Teller, the movie borrows its basic narrative structure and some familiar tropes from traditional rom-coms. But this definitely isn’t When Harry Met Sally.

Yes, Eternity is funny – even whimsical and breezy at times. Still, it has deadly serious things to say about the nature of longing, the timelessness of love and loss and the ridiculousness of our American culture. It also has a superpower, and her name is Elizabeth Olsen.

Olsen’s character, Joan (played by Betty Buckley as an octogenarian) has lived to a ripe old age, then wakes up in the afterlife as a much younger version of herself with her memories intact. Before she can adjust to the strange new world she finds herself in, she’s forced to make a seemingly impossible decision.

Always an expressive performer with a natural gift for eliciting empathy from the audience, Olsen’s work in Eternity is particularly affecting and memorable. One of her biggest challenges was finding the nuances and rhythms of a character who was young in an entirely different era.

To prepare for her role, Olsen said she channeled legendary comedic screen actors Anne Meara and Shirley MacLaine, among others.

“I’ve always felt like an older Anne Meara in my spirit,” she told HIFF’s chief creative officer David Nugent during a Q&A after the screening. “So I thought it would be exciting to think of someone like her, someone of that time, coming back in a younger body.”

Olsen said that the film’s rather unique take on the elasticity of time (and indeed, on the nature of eternity) is one of the things that drew her to the script. “The film on the page felt like it could be from any time,” she said. “The concept of it felt like it worked in so many different generations, so there’s a timelessness to it.”

Olsen was also inspired by Freyne’s cynical, vividly imagined depiction of the afterlife.

“He was really trying to capture this kind of world where we’re selling each other this capitalistic ideal,” she said of Freyne. “That’s where we are now, but for it to continue into the afterlife – I just loved that that was his point of view, as nihilistic as that might be.”

Sydney Sweeney in Christy

Directed by David Michod, Christy, which made its U.S. premiere on the second night of HIFF, is a powerful biopic. It chronicles the life of Christy Martin, probably the single most important figure in the history of women’s boxing.

Christy is a lot of things. While it’s a story of perseverance with an inspiring true-life ending, it’s also a tragic tale of spousal abuse, homophobia, dysfunctional family dynamics and the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive.

“I learned about Christy Martin when I first read the script,” Sweeney told David Nugent at a post-screening Q&A. “After reading it, I remember calling my team and saying, ‘I can’t believe that more people don’t know about her story.’ She’s one of the most inspirational women I’ve ever met.”

Though she’s been something of a lightning rod in the culture wars recently and is currently spending time as a glamorous it-girl at the very top of the Hollywood food chain, Sweeney has always been a serious actor first and a movie star second. And her performance in Christy is often astoundingly rich and poignant.

When it comes to acting accolades, for better or worse, the film industry tends to put a lot of stock in physical transformations. Sweeney noted that she worked every day for three months with a boxing coach, a nutritionist and a professional weight trainer, ultimately putting on 35 pounds to portray the powerful Christy Martin.

It helped that Sweeney wasn’t a complete stranger to the world of competitive fighting. “I actually grew up kickboxing and grappling,” she told Nugent, before accepting the 2025 HIFF Achievement in Acting Award, adding that between the ages of 12 and 19, “I was the only girl at the dojo.”

Sweeney’s physical performance was indeed an impressive thing to behold. You absolutely believed she could drop a world-class boxer with a single savage left hook. But even more compelling was the way she depicted Martin’s sometimes controlled and sometimes reckless aggression.

Sweeney nailed not only the things that made Martin a great fighter, but also her character’s longing for a different kind of life and the desperation that comes from spending years in an abusive and dangerous relationship.

Martin was a regular on-set during the shoot. And Sweeney said that the ex-boxer was tremendously instrumental in helping her find the essence of her character.

“I’‘ve never had the person I’m portraying watch me; you’re never really sure what they’re thinking,” she explained. “But as it went on, I just wanted her there the entire time because I was able to study her and listen to her and have her thoughts and opinions there whenever I needed them.”

Jessie Buckley in Hamnet

Like Christy, Hamnet is a biopic of sorts, though it’s a biopic of a very different kind. While the 17th century story it tells has no relation whatsoever to the present-day story of Christy Martin, both films asked their leading ladies to find something primal in their respective characters. And both roles required an intense level of physicality.

Directed and co-written by Chloe Zao from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 historical novel of the same name, Hamnet had its East Coast premiere on day three of the festival. The film reimagines the life of a young William Shakespeare (an excellent Paul Mescal) and his family. When we meet the bard, he’s working as a tutor during the day and writing some of the most monumental plays in the history of the English language at night.

As Agnes Shakespeare, Jessie Buckley is the emotional center around which the film revolves. And she turns in an absolutely searing performance. In several pivotal scenes, her body writhes and doubles over in pain or anguish. And the sounds she coaxes from deep within herself are often intense and guttural, filled with uncontrollable grief and loss. It’s the kind of acting that elicits visceral reactions and creates a deep connection with a live audience.

Physicality aside, Zao devotes plenty of camera time to exploring Buckley’s facial expressions and reactions. And the actor rewards her director with a tour de force performance, conveying meaning, sometimes through intense emoting, other times through subtlety and restraint. As a piece of acting, it’s a tightrope walk, but Buckley flat-out nails it.

She even manages to save her best, most moving work for the film’s denouement. Thanks to Buckley, Mescal and an exceptional supporting turn by Noah Jupe as a young Elizabethan stage actor, the final 20 minutes of Hamnet are as emotionally intense an experience as you’re likely to have in a movie theater this year.

Awards speculation is a fool’s errand, but it would be shocking if Buckley didn’t receive multiple nominations for her performance. Ditto for Olsen and Sweeney. These three young actors are all forces of nature. It’ll be fascinating to watch as their careers continue to evolve.