Film Forum

THE BEND IN THE RIVER

Robb Moss Executive Produced By Joel Coen · 2025 · USA · 82 min

IMDBLetterboxd

Filming five friends intimately for nearly 50 years, director Robb Moss invites us to reflect on what it means to inhabit a life fully, in its contradictions and continuities. He began filming Barry, Danny, Cathy, Jeff, and Jim in 1978, when they worked as guides on the Colorado River and lived together in a nude commune—resulting in his short documentary, Riverdogs (1982). He resumed shooting as they came to terms with adulthood for his 2003 follow-up, THE SAME RIVER TWICE. The final installment of a trilogy about Moss’ free-spirited friends navigating their way through life, THE BEND IN THE RIVER weaves new footage of the group—now in their 60s and 70s—with images of their younger selves. As past and present fold into one another, these five sense the fragility of their lives, how memory reshapes experience, and how meaning is made and remade.