‘Bunnylovr’ Review: An Underbaked Debut 

‘Bunnylovr’ follows Rebecca, a Chinese American cam girl who is struggling with multiple relationships in her life. From her estranged father to an abnormal client, Rebecca can not seem to grapple with what to do with these connections. The film is directed, written, starring, and produced by Katarina Zhu. Along with that, ‘Bunnylovr’ is produced by Rachel Sennot, who plays the supporting character of her best friend Bella. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Read our ‘Bunnylovr’ review below. 

‘Bunnylovr’ is a very standard female character study filled with daddy issues and uncomfortable sexual situations, but none of these aspects are dived into in a very exciting manner. I appreciate what Zhu is attempting to do with the film, but it fell very flat. There were some moments that I felt reared too close to ‘for the shock of it’ scenes. Everything that was done with the bunny in question was unnecessary and never explained. The problem with the movie is that everything is left in the open, and nothing is touched on in a meaningful way. Just presented to the audience. I can tell the film wants to say something but can not find the words. 

One of the main downfalls of ‘Bunnylovr’ is the female friendship. I found its depiction of female friendship to be misguided and disappointing. The entire film is about connection and intimacy, but it chooses to make the one female connection toxic without resolution. The relationship is between the main character and Rachel Sennots character, who I found to be unfortunately underutilized. The viewer is given no understanding of why these two women would be friends since they are always angry or annoyed at each other, which is the main problem of the movie. Nothing makes sense because we are given nothing to make sense of. It may be the short runtime, yet I believe that the time spent was used in the wrong way. 

There is nothing really to say about the film. It has so many ideas thrown around, with nothing fleshed out. I am interested in seeing where Katarina Zhu goes after this because there are some things to admire about the film. It looks great, with beautiful, intimate cinematography that has deep blues and warm oranges. She definitely took an artistic direction that was appealing and matched the content of the film. I just wished it said more about the cam girl experience, or any experience for that matter. 

‘Bunnylovr’ is directed, written, starring, and produced by Katarina Zhu and premiered at Sundance.