--- title: "September Says" year: 2025 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/september-says" fi1m_id: "september-says" imdb_id: "tt29315015" tmdb_id: 1212337 wikidata_id: "Q125499002" fi1m_score: 63 critics_score: 59 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-21" updated: "2026-09-21T01:46:39.694399+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # September Says (2025) Directed by Ariane Labed · 1h 40m · Drama ## Identity September Says - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/september-says - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** september-says - **IMDb ID:** tt29315015 - **TMDB ID:** 1212337 - **Wikidata ID:** Q125499002 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29315015/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1212337, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q125499002 **Fi1m score: 63** · Critics 59 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Simon Says, if Simon were your older sister and the game never ended > Ariane Labed’s first film as director is precise, clammy and well acted, and for an hour it holds us. Then a turn most viewers will have guessed arrives, is explained, and takes a good deal of the strangeness with it. ## Synopsis September (Pascale Kann) and July (Mia Tharia) are sisters who are rarely more than an arm’s length from each other. September gives the orders; July carries them out, in a game called September Says that neither of them has ever stopped playing. Their mother, Sheela (Rakhee Thakrar), mostly leaves them to it. Trouble at school ends with the three of them leaving England for an empty house in Ireland, where the phone line needs a man to come out and fix it, the neighbours keep their distance, and the sisters have nobody to talk to but each other. ## Review Ariane Labed has spent years in front of the camera for Athina Rachel Tsangari and Yorgos Lanthimos, and her first film as director, from Daisy Johnson’s novel *Sisters*, has learned from both: flat delivery, bodies that move as though drilled, a family that treats the rest of the world as a rumour. It is well made and well acted, and for most of its first hour it is properly unsettling. It then heads for a reveal that a fair number of viewers will have worked out ahead of it, and spends its last stretch confirming what we already suspected. The sisters are the film, and Labed has cast them well. Pascale Kann plays September with her chin up and her arms loose, a girl who has never once been told no and would not have heard it. Mia Tharia plays July smaller, always half a step behind, watching her sister’s mouth for the next instruction. They share a bed, a wardrobe and, most of the time, a sentence. The game gives the film its title and its engine: September says, and July does, and the commands get worse. One early order, given in a level voice across a table and obeyed before it has quite finished, made us go cold. Nobody raises a voice. That is the point, and Labed knows it. Rakhee Thakrar’s Sheela is the third person in the house and the loneliest, a mother who has lost the thread of her own daughters, and when things go wrong she goes to bed. Thakrar plays her with a tired patience that keeps threatening to curdle and never quite does. The film is honest about how a mother might end up frightened of her own children and ashamed of being frightened, and it does not ask us to like her for it. The move to Ireland is where the craft earns its keep. Lauren Kelly’s production design gives the Irish house bare plaster, dark timber and rooms that seem to have been emptied rather than furnished, and Balthazar Lab lights them so the daylight looks second-hand, as though it had come through several other windows first. Saileóg O’Halloran puts the girls in shared, mismatched clothes that look handed down from one to the other and back again. Johnnie Burn’s music sits low under everything, closer to the hum of the house than to a score, and it is the reason the silences work. Bettina Böhler cuts hard, dropping whole hours between shots so that we are never sure how long the family has been shut in there. The trouble is the story underneath. Johnson’s novel keeps its cards close; the film shows its hand by degrees, and around the hour mark we knew where it was going. We were not annoyed by that, at first. Plenty of good films let you see the end coming and make the arrival count. This one arrives, stops, and explains. The last twenty minutes replay what we had understood, in a slower tempo and with the meaning underlined, and the dread the first hour had built drains out through the gap. We left the cinema deflated rather than shaken, which is not what the opening promised. The world outside the sisters is thin, too. Cal O’Driscoll’s John and Niamh Moriarty’s Jennifer are there to be stared at by the girls and then to leave, and the film is not much interested in what Ireland thinks of the three English arrivals in the big empty house. That may be the intention, a family so sealed that nobody else registers, but it leaves the middle of the film with only one room to be in. Against the recent run of films about girls bound too tightly to each other, this is one of the better looking and less hysterical, and Kann and Tharia are the reason to see it. Bring some patience for the final act and do not go in expecting to be surprised. It runs 100 minutes and carries an 18 certificate, which the school scenes earn on their own. *Fi1m score 63, published 21 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews lean cautiously positive, though the split is real. Most critics agree that Ariane Labed’s first film is assured for a debut, and the praise clusters on the two leads, whose closely choreographed physical performances several reviewers find both unsettling and tender. The transplant of Daisy Johnson’s novel to an Irish setting is generally credited with tightening the film into something claustrophobic, and the sisters’ too-close bond is widely felt to be well understood rather than merely gestured at. The reservations gather around the late twist. Even admirers think it slightly undercuts the sombre mood built before it, and the sceptics go further: The Guardian finds the plot turn predictable, Deadline calls the resolution sad but familiar rather than strange, and The Times judges the whole transposition alienating and the twist preposterous. The spread is wide, from four stars to two, with IndieWire in the middle seeing bursts of brilliance in a patchy whole. ## Straight answers **Is September Says worth watching?** *September Says* is worth watching for anyone who likes a slow, chilly drama about sisters, and we scored it 63. Ariane Labed's first film as director is well made and well acted, and its first hour is properly unsettling. The last twenty minutes explain a turn most viewers will have guessed, and a good deal of the dread drains out with it. **How long is September Says, and what is it rated?** *September Says* runs 1h 40m. It is a drama film. **Where can I watch September Says in the US?** *September Says* is not on any streaming or rental service in the US at the moment. It is available in 8 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is September Says, and is it suitable for children?** *September Says* carries an 18 certificate in the UK and is not suitable for children. Nobody raises a voice and the fear comes from dread rather than shocks, but the older sister's commands grow cruel and the school scenes on their own earn the rating. It suits adults who can sit with an unpleasant atmosphere for a hundred minutes. **How does September Says compare to Heavenly Creatures?** *September Says* is the calmer and better-looking of the two, but [*Heavenly Creatures*](https://film.one/film/heavenly-creatures) is the stronger film. Both follow two girls who build a private world the adults arrive too late to enter; Peter Jackson's is more consuming and stays unsettling to the end, while Ariane Labed's holds its nerve for an hour and then explains itself. See Labed's for the two leads, Jackson's for the whole. **Is September Says based on a true story or a book?** *September Says* is based on Daisy Johnson's novel *Sisters*, not on a true story. Johnson keeps her cards close; the film shows its hand by degrees and spells out in its final stretch what the book leaves you to work out. You do not need to have read it, and the film explains itself fully enough by the end that knowing the source adds little. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Little White Lies**, Hannah Strong (4/4/3): The critic finds the film uncanny and tender as an assured directorial debut with magnetic leads and strange surreal elements grounded in British and Irish iconography, but notes that a third-act twist slightly undermines its sombreness. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/september-says) - **RogerEbert.com**, Isaac Feldberg (75/100, inferred): The film is an elegantly unmoored tale of two sisters in a tense examination of codependency and isolation. It shares a kinship with the darkly absurdist works of Labed's frequent collaborators while offering a tender perspective on adolescent escapism and painful revelations. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/cannes-2024-armand-the-kingdom-september-says) - **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it an arresting directorial debut that captures the fragility of adolescence with preciseness and intimacy through strong performances, establishing a peculiar tone as it shifts from character study to something more mysterious and haunting. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/september-says-cannes-review/5193883.article) - **Sight and Sound** (70/100, inferred): The critic praises Labed’s inventive debut for understanding the creepiness of sisters' dangerously close bond, highlighting the skilfully choreographed physical performances of the leads and the atmospheric shift to a claustrophobic Irish setting that heightens domestic terror. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/september-says-ariane-labeds-inventive-debut-understands-creepiness-sisters) - **IndieWire**, Sophie Monks Kaufman (50/100, inferred): The critic describes Ariane Labed's debut as an atmospheric but patchy portrait of codependent sisters. It features promising bursts of brilliance amid its flaws. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/september-says-review-1235007328/) - **The Guardian** (50/100, inferred): The critic finds Labed’s directorial debut an emotionally distant modern gothic adaptation of Daisy Johnson’s novel Sisters about too-close teenage sisters. It stumbles on familiar ground with a predictable plot twist despite stylish direction. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/23/september-says-review-ariane-labed-daisy-johnson-sisters-tale-of-too-close-siblings-stumbles-on-familiar-gothic-ground) - **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★☆☆☆): The adaptation of Daisy Johnson’s novel Sisters is transposed to an Irish setting with alienating results and a preposterous twist. Labed’s attempt to ‘weird up’ the drama fails to succeed. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/september-says-film-review-n62t07plx) - **Deadline**, Stephanie Bunbury (40/100, inferred): The critic notes flashes of truly original accomplishment in Labed's directing debut but finds the central sisterly dynamic ultimately predictable and underwhelming, describing the story's resolution as sad but familiar rather than strange. [Read](https://deadline.com/2024/05/september-says-movie-review-ariane-labed-cannes-film-festival-1235928248/) ## Details - **Director:** Ariane Labed - **Director:** Ariane Labed - **Writer:** Ariane Labed - **Novel:** Daisy Johnson - **Cinematography:** Balthazar Lab - **Editor:** Bettina Böhler - **Music:** Johnnie Burn - **Production design:** Lauren Kelly - **Costume design:** Saileóg O'Halloran - **Producer:** Ed Guiney, Romanna Lobach, Lara Hickey - **Cast:** Mia Tharia as July; Pascale Kann as September; Rakhee Thakrar as Sheela; Cal O'Driscoll as John; Niamh Moriarty as Jennifer; Barry John Kinsella as Cableman; Shane Connellan as Man in Bar; Amelia Valentina Pankhania as Young July - **Runtime:** 1h 40m - **First release (France):** 21 May 2024 - **Genres:** Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyGxJWVX2O4 ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. Also available in: AT, DE, ES, FR, GB, IE, NL, TR. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Golden Hitchcock 2024: Golden Hitchcock (won) ## If you liked this - *Heavenly Creatures* (1994), Fi1m 84: Two girls build a private world and the adults arrive too late to enter it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/heavenly-creatures.md) - *The Falling* (2014): English schoolgirls, a shared fainting sickness and Maxine Peake as a mother who has withdrawn - *Attenberg* (2010): Labed in front of the camera, walking strangely, in the Greek film that made her name - *Innocence* (2004): A boarding school for small girls, no explanations, and a dread that never lifts - *Thoroughbreds* (2017): Two rich teenagers, one without feelings, plotting in a very clean house --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/september-says