Premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and screening at the 48th Asian American International Film Festival, director, writer and lead role actor Katarina Zhu’s feature film Bunnylovr is a strong and promising debut. Living in a small apartment in Bushwick, Chinese-American Rebecca plays a personal assistant by day and a cam-girl by night. Upon receiving a wide-eyed doe of a bunny rabbit in the mail from an online admirer who calls himself John (played by Austin Amelio of Hit Man), the film’s protagonist is simultaneously hesitant yet intrigued by this mysterious virtual stranger. On top of her compiling loneliness, Rebecca is also dealing with her estranged father’s terminal illness as well as her disconnect with her artistic friend, Bella (Rachel Sennott of Shiva Baby and Bottoms). An existential coming of age film, Bunnylovr digs to the core of self-awareness and isolation in a society increasingly filled with inter-personal detachment. 

Struggling to pay her bills, Rebecca latches onto John as he freely offers her $500 for each private chat session behind her computer screen. Boundaries become muddled and porous as John simply requests to watch Rebecca and her new fluffy white pet bond, yet eventually starts to request strange and intimate acts between the two. Rebecca seems to have a difficult time with boundaries in general; a chance encounter with her father whom she hasn’t seen in a long time leads to an indecisive agreement for catching up over coffee and food and helping her father ‘cheat’ at the local neighborhood gambling games. There is clearly tenderness between the two, but also a palpable skepticism on Rebecca’s end, shown in her minute actions and gestures. 

Zhu’s film doesn’t rely on a big budget or a grand plot, but rather on the simplicity of each character’s nuances and expressions. Behind Rebecca’s eyes we know that there are desires and worries about her future simmering, and even simple scenes with her alone with her bunny (whom she names Milk) are sensitive and engaging. Perhaps the simplicity of the film runs a little too rampant, since there are portions of the film that I wish dove into her relationship and friendship with her father and Bella a degree further. However, Bunnylovr does succinctly capture that existential seclusion that Rebecca has wrapped herself up in. She doesn’t share her relationship to John with anyone outside of herself, and a decision to embark on a road trip and meet John in person leaves no choice but to add to the unease of the film, knowing things likely will not end well. Caught up in many coming-of-age tropes, Bunnylovr still manages to stand on its own with its subtleness and grasp of today’s virtual connections and yearnings that can ultimately still leave one feeling spiritually lost, empty and searching for life’s missing pieces.