TIFF25 REVIEW: Egghead Republic [2025]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 97 minutes
Release Date: November 21st, 2025 (Sweden)
Studio: NonStop Entertainment
Director(s): Pella Kagerman & Hugo Lilja
Writer(s): Pella Kagerman & Hugo Lilja / Arno Schmidt (novel The Egghead Republic)

Go be the hero.

German writer Arno Schmidt’s novel The Egghead Republic published in 1957 with a wild look at the aftermath of nuclear war. Set in 2008 after grave global devastation, an American journalist is sent to report on mutated animals roaming an Arizona desert and a rumored “genius commune” known as the International Republic of Artists and Scientists in the Pacific. Its weird, fantastical satire promises centaurs, chauvinism, and even Schmidt himself. Considering our current politics, it might prove a bit more palatable than that other 1957 novel about a utopian society of free thinkers: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

It’s the sort of go-big-or-go-home source material that demands some bold genius of its own, so it’s unsurprising that Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja would try their hands at (loosely) adapting it for the screen after their success bringing Harry Martinson’s epic science fiction poem Aniana to life. Add Kågerman’s experience working for Vice during its heyday and the idea to pull Egghead Republic through a contemporary lens of online journalism starts to come into focus. Because not even an apocalypse could stop a certain section of humanity from asking themselves how they might profit from it.

Enter Dino Davis (Tyler Labine), publisher, reporter, and raconteur of the infamous Kalamazoo Herald. Here’s a man so unscrupulous that he would track down the great-niece (Ella Rae Rappaport’s Sonja Schmidt) of the favorite author (Arno Schmidt) of a resident (Stephen Rappaport’s Bob Singleton) at the Institute of Radioactive Arts and Science (IRAS) just to talk his way into an invitation to be the first press outlet to gain access to its restricted Kazakhstan desert locale. Yes, Kågerman and Lilja have compressed Schmidt’s original two locales into one.

The year is 2004 and the Soviets and Americans have joined forces to create this haven for creativity and technological advancement on the site of the Cold War’s worst disaster: the intercept and subsequent crash landing of a Russian launched nuclear missile by US forces. What better place to protect top secret work than an uninhabitable zone surrounded by extreme radiation? Everyone is carefully vetted. Everything is meticulously executed. And the site’s most popular voice is apparently allowed to let his inner fanboy out to risk ruining it all.

Dino is using Sonja for access to IRAS. Sonja is using Dino for access to his magazine and the potential exposure of illustrating a cover or the poster for this journey’s resulting film. His desperation inspires others to follow him (Arvin Kananian as his trusted cameraman Turan and Emma Creed as their unpaid intern / photographer / driver Gemma). Her desperation leads her into compromising positions at his behest. Because Dino is the kind of guy who pushes boundaries knowing he can buy his way out of the consequences. He says jump and Sonja is over the cliff before she can even think to ask, “how high?”

While the film teases the insanity to come (shadows of centaurs, an over-zealous Gina Dirawi inexplicably snapping photos of Sonja like she’s a celebrity, and spoof-levels of curious interactions between military personnel obviously hiding secrets), its first two-thirds are a rather familiar look at influence’s allure pitting those with creative control against those who create. There’s Dino’s sexism. Sonja’s self-sabotage. Toxic dynamics forcing Sonja against Gemma and Gemma against Turan. The blatant babysitter runaround from Sergeant Barcoff (Merlin Leonhardt) and the reckless maneuvering to escape his grip without a safety net.

These machinations entertain thanks in large part to the actors proving very game to ramp up their characters’ self-serving ambitions, but it does feel a bit like spinning wheels until they inevitably cross their respective points of no return. Because while the danger might not be exactly what they (and we) were led to believe, this situation is dangerous. Both because their thirst for Dino’s attention drives them to do stupid things and because his thirst for power is fickle enough to put them in harm’s way against their will. That’s when the promise of hallucinatory absurdity is fulfilled.

I get why they’ve left the real insanity for the climax and denouement, but I truly wish we could have spent more time in it. Maybe I would ultimately think the opposite if Kågerman and Lilja did actually give it to me, though, so I’ll appreciate what I got instead. Because it is a great reveal that recolors everything that came before while also introducing fresh possibilities for where it will go next. Egghead Republic more or less provides us a realistic lens with which to gaze at the result of its structural surrealism for so long that the veil lift onto pure lunacy ensures you’ll have a smile on your face until the end.

It’s not as polished or weighty as Aniara, but it’s definitely a kindred spirit—albeit a distant gonzo cousin. Labine is great casting because Dino is right in his manic, no-filter wheelhouse. Kananian and Creed lend their characters an effective sense of morality that’s constantly paper over by their inability to pass up the opportunity to advance their careers (despite knowing in their hearts that it’s all a ruse). And Rappaport is effortlessly relatable as their pawn who’s trying to find her footing because she doesn’t realize the power she could wield here. Once she does? All bets are off.