After 30 years in front of the camera, actress Julia Stiles has taken on a new position in cinema: director.

“It was a revelation,” Stiles said at the 2025 Women+Film Festival in May. “The messaging when you’re an actress, predominantly, is about your appearance. It’s about what you look like. Are you pretty? Are you not pretty? Are you thin? Are you not thin? It gets very specific. But stepping behind the camera, the emphasis was on my ideas. The messaging was: your ideas are important. And your vision and creativity and what you have to say is important.”

And that interest in vision and creativity continued to the Women+Film luncheon, where Stiles was honored with the Barbara Bridges Inspiration Award—named after the founder of the festival.

In her opening remarks, Bridges defined Stiles as “fearless and talented,” highlighting her roles of Kat Stratford in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You and Nicky Parsons in the Bourne movies as evidence. A notion Stiles sloughed off after taking the stage for the luncheon discussion: “I was terrified that I was going to trip on those stairs.”

Stiles brought a welcome amount of frankness to the event. Not one for praise and accolades, she even tried to take the stage halfway through Bridges’ rapturous introduction to get it over with. Her interest was not in exhuming her career up until now. Her excitement surrounded the process and the sustaining passion it took to bring her feature-length directorial debut, Wish You Were Here, to the screen.

“The thing that grabbed me when I first read the book has evolved into something even deeper,” Stiles said of Renée Carlino’s 2017 romance novel about a magical one-night stand that develops into something more. “I knew when I was reading the book that we needed a movie like this right now. Because, ultimately, it’s about love and taking care of people. And it’s got humanity in it.”

Though Stiles does not act in Wish You Were Here, the opportunity to direct enhanced her understanding “of the collective of storytelling.”

“In the best case scenario, as an actress, you’re collaborating with the director, and that collaboration is great, but you are a little piece of the puzzle,” she told the crowd. “So with Wish You Were Here, it was so refreshing to me, and daunting, to be responsible for everything.”

Listening to Stiles address the attendees gathered under the large event tent at the Denver Botanic Gardens where the ceremony was held provided a dose of candor to an audience far too focused on legacy and impact. Stiles may take her position seriously, but not herself.

Regardless, Stiles makes for a better actress than a director. At least as far as Wish You Were Here is concerned—a movie that works only because you’ve seen enough movies like it to fill in the gaps.

The story follows Charlotte (Isabelle Fuhrman), a 29-year-old waitress working at a chintzy Mexican restaurant with her best friend and roommate, Helen (Gabby Kono-Abdy). Both are adrift in the world with no discernable dreams or goals, and neither seems bothered by it.

One night, a well-oiled Helen strikes up a conversation with a stranger, Adam (Mena Massoud), wandering down her and Charlotte’s street. But Adam’s eyes are for Charlotte, and the tiniest spark leads them into the night. They talk at a bar, they flypaper a brick wall, then head back to Adam’s for a roll in the hay.

Along the way, the script—co-written by Stiles and Carlino—drops hints that Adam is not well, but Charlotte refuses to pick them up. He’s elusive about details, forgets to lock his door, and has his bike stolen. His flat is speckled with Post-It notes, none of which Charlotte pauses to read. She’s either entirely uncurious or is blessed with ESP and already knows about the brain tumor.

Details are not one of Wish You Were Here’s strengths. Stiles and Carlino explain Adam’s condition in broad, vague strokes, the same ones used to explain Charlotte’s general discontent with her life. The setting is equally bland. Filmed in Paterson, New Jersey, you wouldn’t know it from the narrative. There are no recognizable landmarks, no traffic save for one minivan, no residents outside those with speaking roles.

In another movie, one that moves at a much speedier clip than this, the use of rom-com shorthand might make for a provoking commentary on the formulaic and pleasurable aspects of the genre. Not here. Here, Stiles skips over so many crucial details while lingering on lackluster performances. In one extended sequence, a fantasy plays out so long you would be forgiven for thinking it was the real thing. And once your attention switches to that thread, questions arise. Where are they, and how did they get here? How do they know what they are doing? Who is funding this excursion? In what season does this movie take place? But before you can string two answers together, Wish You Were Here takes the wind out of your sails and reveals it to be nothing more than fantasy.

Wish You Were Here is one long, dull flight of fancy. It hopes you will fall for a couple of vague and ill-defined characters. It hopes you will find the chemistry the actors can’t. And it hopes that two or three scenes, like the one in the alley with the flypaper, will lodge in your mind the way many of Stiles’ scenes as an actress have. Kat’s sonnet recitation in 10 Things I Hate About You remains a touchstone for the generation who grew up with it and those who have discovered it since. I doubt Wish You Were Here will be awarded such a legacy.

Wish You Were Here (2025)
Directed by Julia Stiles
Screenplay by Julia Stiles, Renée Carlino
Based on the novel by Renée Carlino
Produced by Amanda Bowers, Molly Conners, Rick Dugdale, Gabby Kono-Abdy, Siena Oberman, Jane Oster Sinisi, Julia Stiles
Starring: Isabelle Fuhrman, Mena Massoud, Gabby Kono-Abdy Jimmie Fails, Josh Caras, Jennifer Grey, Kelsey Grammer
Lionsgate, Rated PG-13, Running time 99 minutes, Opened Jan. 17, 2025

---