Film Review: KINGSTON: This College-Set Drama is Ambitious, Thought-Provoking and Well-Acted [Tribeca 2026]

Kingston Review

Kingston (2026) Film Review from the 25th Annual Tribeca Film Festival, a movie directed by Carlos Key and Kalijah Rowe, written by Claire Levesque, Carlos Key and Kalijah Rowe and starring Rose Badiru, Michael C. Liu, Leann Gardner, Nick Snipes and Carlos Key.

Filmmakers Carlos Key and Kalijah Rowe’s well-made college drama, Kingston, knows what it’s like to be a student of higher learning so well that its characters feel truly authentic. This film opens with a young girl crying when she realizes she’s not accepted to Kingston College, a place where dreams are supposed to come true, but at what cost? Kingston is full of performances that capture the passions and confusions of the students at the college portrayed in the film. It’s a movie that could be compared to films like Crash (2005) with its multi-character structure, but the new movie is in a category all its own as it focuses on tensions experienced by its lead characters that can be formidable and distressing beyond comprehension.

Many students at Kingston are economics majors. They stay focused on that topic with classes like money and banking which is just one course that is mentioned in the film. Of course, college is supposed to lead to a fruitful financial career, but the competition is stiff and the coursework and interactions of the students will offer them different kinds of tests than the ones found in the classrooms throughout the college.

One particular class is philosophical in nature and challenges its students to think really hard which is easier said than done, at first. Atlas (Rose Badiru) is a minority student from a less than prosperous financial background who is challenged by her surroundings at Kingston in ways she could handle if everything wasn’t so tense around her. She wants to fit in and learn, but becomes consumed by the challenges that exist on campus and in the classroom.

Another student is Amber (Leann Gardner) who is fascinated by mating when it comes to the creatures she studies, but is less successful in the world of human romance due to her inability to filter what she says appropriately. For example, when someone gives her a gift of a book on mammals, she sort of makes the person who gifted it to her feel a bit awkward. Amber dates Marcos (Nick Snipes) most of the time and the pair get along really well, but it’s only for so long until Marcos may feel tempted to be with other girls to fulfill an ideal college experience that may not even exist in reality.

Michael C. Liu effectively plays a college professor who substitutes one day with odd results and discovers that everything going on at Kingston is a lot more complex in nature than he may have originally realized. Another student, Cyrus (played quite well by the director Carlos Key), comes from a rich upbringing and may have been “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” if Atlas is on to something, but there is an argument between Atlas and Cyrus that makes for the dramatic high point of the film and decisions must be made based on what occurs that have outcomes which won’t be satisfactory for all.

Kingston is a full-picture of the college experience that is told in an impressive way with style to spare. Gardner’s performance is so layered and intriguing that the actress emerges with the film’s most natural feeling performance. On the other hand, the acting of Rose Badiru as Atlas is first-rate, but in a different way than Gardner’s turn in the film. Badiru has a major challenge of playing a character who is super intelligent, but cannot speak her mind without consequences. If Amber gets to be her true self a little too often, Atlas must hide her true self to succeed and that makes Badiru’s performance very difficult to pull off. We sense Atlas’s frustrations and sympathize with her because of Badiru’s spot-on work.

Kingston is a film that isn’t always fair to the students. These characters are flawed, perhaps a little too flawed for their own good. Yet, the movie overcomes this problem by addressing their problems and zooming in on the issues that make college such a rough experience for the majority of those who attend prestigious schools of higher learning. This new film goes back and forth between characters often and, sometimes, the viewer will anxiously await for characters to come back on-screen in order to see what happens next in their lives. That’s the markings of a very good film.

While Kingston has fine male performances from Key, Liu and Snipes, it is the work of Badiru and Gardner that shapes the film’s message of how hard it is to fit in. Both Atlas and Amber settle in certain ways at the end for the decisions they don’t want to necessarily make or face. Badiru and Gardner both thrive in their roles and deserve top notch grades for their performances, perhaps that’s why both of their character names begin with an “A.” Kingston is an unforgettable and moving experience that demonstrates why college can be both the best and the worst possible experience.

Rating: 8/10

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