What Tomorrow Brings

It's a uniquely tragic burden when a dying parent asks a child to take on the responsibilities of an adult. In Matthew Engelbert’s independent drama "What Tomorrow Brings," Clara is handed exactly this impossible mandate. Her father, in his final days, instructs her to always put her younger sister, Ruby, first, quietly confessing that their mother simply isn't strong enough. As a viewer, and certainly as a parent, you instinctively cringe watching that weight being lowered onto a teenager's shoulders. When the mother inevitably leaves, Clara is left to navigate her senior year of high school while effectively raising a ten-year-old and harboring a devastating secret that could shatter the fragile reality she has constructed.

The film is a work of extraordinary sincerity, and its behind-the-scenes creation is almost as compelling as the narrative itself. It's entirely a family affair: Matthew Engelbert directs, produces, and co-writes, while his daughters Joely and Phoebe star as Clara and Ruby, respectively, sharing writing credits as well. Engelbert makes the ambitious stylistic choice to film using full-scene, unbroken takes without internal cuts. At its best, this unbroken gaze forces an immersive intimacy, pulling us directly into the sisters' claustrophobic, makeshift world.

Yet, ambition and sincerity cannot entirely mask the film's structural and textual stumbles. The movie’s tender heart frequently flounders under the weight of an artificial script. We are presented with voiceover narration framed as Clara's diary entries—a well-worn device that consistently tells us how she is feeling rather than allowing us to witness it organically. The dialogue often feels unnatural, and you can see the young actors visibly struggling to wrangle these manufactured lines into something resembling genuine conversation.

Despite their real-life relationship, Joely Engelbert never quite manages to convey the suffocating depth of Clara’s anxiety or the fierce, desperate protectiveness that the script insists she feels. Instead, it is the youngest actor, Phoebe, who emerges as the film’s true emotional anchor. As Ruby, she excels, navigating moments of fear, heartbreak, and spontaneous joy with a naturalism that cuts through the script's artifice. She is the film's most believable character, and whenever the narrative allows her to simply exist on screen, the movie sparkles.

As a director, Matt Engelbert clearly wants to champion themes of hope, the resilience of found family, and the power of faith. These are undeniably worthy concepts, but a narrative must earn them. The film frequently glosses over the grueling day-to-day realities of the sisters' hardships, opting instead for musical montages that attempt to manufacture an emotional connection we haven't reached on our own. Because the struggle is truncated, the eventual grace notes feel unearned; when hope and faith come too easily, they do not hold any real narrative weight.

There's a genuinely heartbreaking final act here, and when the film’s emotional crescendo finally arrives right before the big reveal, it lands a solid punch. "What Tomorrow Brings" is an undeniably flawed picture, hampered by its rigid dialogue and uneven pacing, but it's impossible to dismiss. It possesses a raw, earnest vulnerability that larger studio films spend millions trying to fake. It doesn't wholly succeed as a polished drama, but as a passionate, deeply personal testament to sisterhood, it wears its heart proudly on its sleeve.