Let’s start with this: if you go into Ponyboi expecting a gritty, suspenseful crime flick full of twists and turns, you’ll probably walk away confused—or maybe even a little underwhelmed. But if you shift your lens and see it for what it really is—a raw, emotionally resonant, and deeply personal story about identity, place, and yearning—then Ponyboi starts to look like something entirely more powerful.
Directed by Esteban Arango and written by River Gallo (who also stars in the title role), Ponyboi doesn’t reinvent the crime genre. In fact, it barely tries. The plot points are so familiar you can almost guess what’s going to happen before the characters do. But—and here’s the twist—it isn’t really about the plot. It’s about the atmosphere. The feeling. The aching undercurrent of melancholy and romance that pulses beneath every scene like a heartbeat. That’s what makes Ponyboi worth watching.
A Character First, a Crime Second
The story centers on Ponyboi, an intersex sex worker navigating life in New Jersey. He sells sex at truck stops and underpasses, and spends his off-hours working the backroom of a laundromat run by Vinny (Dylan O’Brien), a local drug-dealer-pimp hybrid. Despite the grim surroundings, there’s a strange camaraderie in this world—until, inevitably, it gets upended.
Vinny’s pregnant girlfriend, Angel (played with heart by Victoria Pedretti), is Ponyboi’s closest friend, unaware that her boyfriend is also sleeping with him. There’s no grand betrayal here, no explosive confrontations—just the slow unraveling of a messy, tangled triangle. Things turn serious when a couple of menacing mobsters show up (one even rocking spats like he stepped out of a Damon Runyon novel), forcing Ponyboi to flee. That’s the crime plot in a nutshell.
But where the film truly shines is outside the confines of that plot. It’s in the moments in between—the still, quiet ones where nothing “big” happens, but everything important does. These are the scenes where you stop watching the film for the story and start watching it for Ponyboi himself.
River Gallo: The Heart of the Film
River Gallo doesn’t just write and star in Ponyboi—they breathe life into it. When the film premiered at Sundance, Gallo, who is openly intersex, described the movie as a way to express the layers of their identity—intersex, Latinx, from New Jersey—all rolled into one experience of being an outsider. And that authenticity? It radiates.
There’s something remarkable about the way Gallo turns this deeply specific, personal narrative into something universally relatable. It echoes the logic behind Thomas Hardy’s defense of being “provincial.” Hardy wrote about the same patch of English countryside over and over again. When critics accused him of being too localized, he replied that this so-called provincialism was actually the “essence of individuality.” Gallo’s work pulses with that same truth: by telling a deeply rooted story, they strike something much larger.
The Power of Place
So many films these days feel like they could be set anywhere. Toronto stands in for New York, Atlanta pretends to be L.A.—and unless you’re paying close attention, you barely notice. Ponyboi, though? It’s dyed in the wool of New Jersey. You can feel the weight of the atmosphere—the humid streets, the neon lights bouncing off diner windows, the aching silence of the laundromat. Even when the film moves indoors, the spirit of the Garden State clings to every surface.
For anyone who’s lived in places like Bayonne, Union City, or Weehawken, the film captures something unmistakably real. This isn’t just great location scouting. This is intimate familiarity. It’s the New Jersey you know because you’ve felt it.
Cinematographer Ed Wu leans into this vibe, ditching gritty realism for a noir-drenched dreamscape. He floods the screen with blurry neons and deep, velvety shadows. Faces glow with colored light. Even in its darker moments, Ponyboi doesn’t feel grim—it feels like a dream you’re trying to remember.
A Cowboy Named Bruce
And then there’s Bruce.
Played by Murray Bartlett, Bruce is a mysterious man in a cowboy hat who walks into the laundromat one night and gently changes the trajectory of the film. There’s something magnetic about him. He isn’t just another trick or customer—he’s a mirror, a possibility, a safe space in human form. From their very first exchange, there’s a chemistry that goes far beyond sexual tension. It feels more like two souls recognizing each other.
Their conversation feels beautifully unscripted:
“I’m Bruce.”
“Oh, like Springsteen.”
“Are you a fan?”
“Every Jersey girl is.”
“What’s your favorite song?”
“That’s tough. Probably ‘I’m on Fire’. You know that one?”
It’s simple. Real. Magic. And then—because why not—they start singing “I’m on Fire” together in a dingy laundromat with fluorescent lights buzzing above them and a sex room just steps away. Somehow, in that unlikely setting, they carve out a soft, safe corner of the world just for themselves.
Later, Bruce returns. They meet again in a near-empty diner—another Jersey classic—lit up like a spaceship. The music swells with 1950s doo-wop, casting a romantic glow over the scene. There’s something timeless in their interaction. Like they’ve stepped outside the normal bounds of life for a moment and found something sacred.
From Short to Feature
Ponyboi didn’t start here. Back in 2019, Gallo co-directed a short version of the film, which focused solely on Ponyboi’s internal journey. No mobsters, no car chases—just a tender, grounded story of a person trying to find love, acceptance, and maybe, just maybe, a way out.
In that earlier version, the emotional core felt sharper, more unfiltered. Bruce still existed, but he wasn’t a plot device—he was a possibility. A fantasy, even. A cowboy-hatted dream of someone who might love you exactly as you are. That short film stayed focused on Ponyboi, which worked beautifully, because Gallo—raw, resilient, and heartbreakingly real—was all we needed.
The expanded feature adds layers—crime, tension, high stakes. But in doing so, it sometimes muddies the emotional waters. The film begins to feel like it’s trying to “do more” when it really just needed to be more—more patient, more trusting of its own power.
Characters from Somewhere Real
One of the film’s more subtle victories is how it embraces identity—not just in terms of gender or sexuality, but where someone is from. In an era where accents and regional quirks are often sanded down for mass appeal, Ponyboi does the opposite. It leans into the New Jersey-ness of its characters. And that makes them real.
This is something sorely missing from much of modern film. Think of actors like Barbra Streisand, Natasha Lyonne, Annabella Sciorra, or Lady Gaga—they carry their hometowns with them. Their voices, gestures, and mannerisms are rooted in place. River Gallo deserves to be in that lineup. They don’t erase their roots—they amplify them. That’s where the soul of Ponyboi lives.
The Film’s Greatest Frustration
Here’s the thing: Ponyboi is at its best when it stops trying so hard to impress. When it lets the story breathe. When it leans into Ponyboi’s awkwardness, dreams, heartbreak, and humor. When it lets characters talk rather than push the plot forward.
The scenes with Bruce? They’re the film’s emotional anchor. Everything else—mobster threats, narrow escapes, drug deals—feels like genre filler. As if someone in a studio room said, “This story needs more action,” instead of trusting that a complex, layered human being like Ponyboi could carry the entire thing.
And here’s the kicker: audiences do care about those kinds of stories. We crave authenticity. We want to see someone we haven’t seen before. Someone like Ponyboi—tough, sweet, confused, hopeful, hurt, dreaming.
There’s still so much left to explore.
Final Thoughts
Ponyboi may be wrapped in the aesthetics of a noir-tinged crime drama, but its true power comes from somewhere else entirely. From River Gallo’s fiercely honest performance. From the specificity of place. From fleeting moments of connection that hit you harder than any shootout ever could.
It’s a frustrating film at times, yes. But it’s also something rare: a film that makes you feel like you’ve been allowed into someone else’s inner world. And once you’re there, even the most predictable plot points fade into the background. What remains is the ache of longing, the thrill of recognition, and the quiet, stubborn hope that maybe—just maybe—there’s a place in this world for people like Ponyboi.
And that, in itself, is worth the watch.
