Dakota (Kota Johan), a 20-something Afro-Latina singer-songwriter living in New York, spends the night with her boyfriend. She gives said boyfriend Yuri (Yuri Pleskun) a goodbye before he returns home to the Ukraine for his father. That last night gets her pregnant, and she’s fine with that, because she wants to keep her unborn baby. But being a singer-songwriter-busker and working at a bodega with her best friend Stella (Stella Tompkins) isn’t enough. She’s also not professional at that job, as her coworker London (Perry Strong) occasionally warns her. After losing that job, she las lesser options, like get into sex work or return to her family.

Credit is due to this film as it balances its NY substance and style, although, disclaimers on both. Other films like this would delineate itself into acts, showing Dakota’s life before and after Yuri. Instead, there’s a coherence in depicting the downward spiral of a young woman living in Brooklyn. Before watching this film, I just assumed it would have the same energy as the one I’d assume for Madeleine’s Madeleine. This film is still pretty hipster-y but what I got instead is something toeing the line towards poverty porn. Tendaberry‘s tendencies towards that kind of story is just one of the elements that may make some doubt this film.

Haley Elizabeth Anderson‘s Tendaberry throws a lot onscreen – stories of Coney Island, the second Russo-Ukrainian War, and of course, COVID. A cynical view of this film is that all of these story threads exist to distract from the main story. I get it, Dakota hasn’t been in New York for long, and we’ve all been young and dumb. But spoiler alert, she also believes the word of a Realtor (Mike Donovan) in ways no one else would. There’s also a share of screen time here depicting Dakota’s one time stint as a sex worker. That subplot, despite having mostly an air of authenticity, is one of a few that raises my eyebrows a little bit.

Another thing in Tendaberry that makes me raise my eyebrows a bit is probably because of assumptions. But then again, I, a racialized urbanite, should not judge a fictional character that have similarities with me. I’m not close to my family and neither is she, but I still kept asking about her family. The family question is one of the few that this film takes time to answer but it does. Another thing that helps this film is Johan’s performance as Dakota, one with layers. There’s a version of this film that makes Dakota unsympathetic but Johan makes sure viewers are on Dakota’s side.

Stream Tendaberry on MUBI.