CULVER CITY FILM FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW! Olivia Jean Hamilton’s The Closet takes a modern twist on the coming-out story, and don’t ya know it, the toughest crowd isn’t always the one you’d expect. Olympia (Amy Ward) has a secret — she’s bisexual — and she’s finally ready to come out…to her friends at least. Her straight friend Becca (Marylynn Sienna) isn’t the problem. It’s her gay and lesbian friends she’s worried about. The stress has Olympia rehearsing in the mirror of her walk-in closet. She decides the best move is to throw a casual get-together, bake a cake, and break the news in the most comfortable environment possible.
The gathering brings together Becca, Sasha (Jasmine Vaughan), and the openly opinionated Gray (Moe Dagane), a gold-star gay who is not shy about his views on sexual identity. When the conversation turns to a mutual friend named Ryan — recently out of a relationship with a girlfriend, possibly gay — Gray’s offhand comment makes it clear that “possibly bisexual” is not a category he takes seriously. With her friends gathered and the cake on the table, Olympia takes a deep breath and reveals everything with the most gay dad joke imaginable.
Becca (Marylynn Sienna), Sasha (Jasmine Vaughan), and Gray (Moe Dagane) hang out in a bedroom in The Closet.
“Olympia has a secret — she’s bisexual — and she’s finally ready to come out…to her friends at least.”
Writer/director Olivia Jean Hamilton drew from her own life for The Closet — specifically a memory from boarding school where she came out to friends. The idea reared its head during a UCLA storytelling class, and within a week, she had a storyboard, a script, a color palette, and was ready to go. The film’s central theme is the anxiety Hamilton knows all too personally. Over the years, she found her straight friends far more accepting than some in the gay and lesbian community. It’s this experience that she wanted reflected on screen. Her goal is to keep making films that tackle complex identity issues while maintaining a fun, warm, and relatable tone.
The Closet takes a light tone on the subject of coming out and how that declaration takes on a meaning of its own — no matter what you need to confess, your best friends will always accept who you are, regardless. Hamilton delivers a tight production that beautifully captures her experiences of coming out. While I might complain about the excessive use of pastel, everyone has their own tastes, and I didn’t produce the film, so to hell with what I think. The Closet is a feel-good five minutes that makes the most of every second.
"…reveals everything with the most gay dad joke imaginable."
