Writer and director Paula González-Nasser’s feature debut, The Scout, follows Sofia (Mimi Davila), who is scouting potential locations for a TV show’s pilot episode that a network will hopefully pick up. She meets New York homeowners and residents, working her way into their inner sanctums to photograph them for the filmmaking team’s consideration.
The Scout, which had its World Premiere in the US Narrative Competition at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, is like a matryoshka doll, only instead of a doll inside of a doll, there are journeys inside journeys. The four main layers are (1) Sofia’s logistical support of the production and the filmmaking team’s vision; (2) Sofia’s personal and professional story, (3) the lives of the homeowners and residents, and (4) González-Nasser’s story, as her vision unfolds onscreen which all the other journeys are nesting inside.
González-Nasser, who worked as a location scout for six years, undercuts the glamorous view of film production. Sofia’s day is filled with driving around, struggling to find places to park, accumulating a growing collection of parking tickets, flyering neighborhoods, fielding calls from interested homeowners and residents, and meeting with the filmmaking team, whose critical and snide comments, impractical and insistent expectations, quietly get under her skin.
Now and then, Sofia lets the mask slip, and she shows that exhaustion is beginning to set in, like rot, alongside her escalating existential crisis. One of The Scout‘s strengths is that González-Nasser isn’t afraid to let her audience sympathize with Sofia’s exhaustion and grow weary themselves. Yet she’s confident that the characters and story will keep us engaged.
Herein lies an ironic twist. The director and her cinematographer, Nicola Newton, deliberately distance Sofia from the audience. In The Scout‘s opening scene, the camera peers into the apartment’s bedroom from the doorway. Sofia’s boyfriend, Andy (Nick Nazmi), tries to wake his girlfriend, who is under the bedsheets. Eventually, she sits up, but González-Nasser and editor Ryan Martin Brown refrain from cutting to a mid-closeup or closeup. Instead, they cut to a shot from behind her as she leaves the apartment building. The camera, however, doesn’t follow, and Sofia exits the frame.
Instead of a timely cut, the filmmakers linger, then pause briefly, and the film cuts to Sofia driving through a dimly lit tunnel. Again, we’re perched behind her, looking at the back of her head, with her eyes framed in the rear-view mirror. This is the cinematographic and editing template that The Scout adopts to create distance and keep the audience out of step with the character.
Later in the film, these obstructive techniques are penetrated as the camera begins to enter Sofia’s personal space. By the time she crosses paths with Becca (Otmara Marrero), a long-lost friend who is pregnant with her first child, mid-close-ups and close-ups have become part of The Scout‘s cinematographic repertoire. This approach effectively mimics the organic growth of interpersonal connection and creates a conversation between the film’s form and its themes.
At its heart, The Scout is thematically concerned with connection, but it appears González-Nasser is primarily interested in the struggle or awkwardness of human connection. The gentle and elderly Ana (Rutanya Alda) talks about missing her son and daughter, who have grown up and have moved away. The son lives in London and the daughter in Japan.
Sofia and Ana’s interaction is warm, but there are awkward moments. Sofia becomes aware of the extent to which the lonely old woman is confiding in her and how comfortable she has become around her. Meanwhile, there’s no natural rhythm in Sofia’s interaction with Lance (Ikechukwu Ufomadu), who discusses his knee operation and believes that humans evolving to walk on two legs was a mistake. “I don’t know how humans haven’t evolved better than they have,” he says.
Both these encounters are about the difficulty of finding a sociable balance in what are essentially transactional relationships. What we see as Lance presses to connect with Sofia is that the connection either doesn’t exist or there’s not enough time to build a rapport, especially with his quirky wit. Here González-Nasser dryly lays bare how socially awkward people are and the nuances of negotiating interpersonal relationships. She also echoes the sentiments of the American academic Brené Brown, who asserts that connection is our driving force.
Then there’s Tyler (Max Rosen), a stay-at-home dad who sounds disgruntled with his lot in life, and fish shop owner Josh (Matt Barats), who is attempting to put a new spin on the classic Moby Dick tale. Both, in their own way, explore how connection serves as a means to share our stories, to seek sympathy and a like-minded soul, and the need to be seen and heard on our own terms.
What of Sofia? By the end of The Scout, she has the presence of a ghost wandering around New York’s suburbs, entering people’s lives only to disappear as quickly as she came. The question that confronts the audience is, What do we really know about Sofia? Who is this woman we have connected with?
We know she’s not married; she’s in a reasonably long-term relationship, and she hasn’t ruled out the possibility of wanting children. We also know she’s exhausted, and it’s reasonable to suspect that she’s not content in life.
One telling moment comes when Sofia tells Ana, “There’s no time to think about time.” This conveys the essence of the film: life is like being caught in a slipstream or falling down an endless rabbit hole. Sofia is a portrait of a woman trapped in a routine, who may or may not escape. By not allowing us to walk away with a clear and detailed understanding of who Sofia is, González-Nasser emphasizes this intent. She’s a character struggling to reveal who she is, if she even knows herself. Somewhere deep down she does, but she’s simply wandering around in a haze of white noise.
The lingering impression of The Scout is that it’s filled with small triumphs, so slight they’ll be easily overlooked. The director’s début deserves to shine, if only because she makes choices that are difficult to pull off and can easily backfire.
The final word should be reserved for Mimi Davila, a fine casting choice. Comfortable with non-verbal aspects of performance, she communicates through still and quiet expressions that offer enough of a glimpse into her thoughts. Davila draws our gaze, and her friendly nature, combined with knowing how to punctuate awkward moments with an understated emphasis, subscribes to the mantra ‘less is more’—the thread of an idea that runs through The Scout.