A Trip Elsewhere (2025) Movie Review: Pandemic-set psychedelic dramedy moves through a grief-stricken nightmare 

The COVID-19 pandemic, among many other things, also gave us movies set within the world lockdown. It was a new, scary feeling for almost all of us, and movies set within that context often used the isolation and anxiety of the unpredictability to evoke a slew of emotions that movies often make us feel. J.R. Sawyers’ “A Trip Elsewhere” is one of (hopefully) the last COVID-set films that, in the current context, looks at the long-lasting impact of the pandemic that left most of us completely alone. 

Seen through the POV of Sorina (Andrea Geones), the film follows four vaguely familiar people dropping acid out of shared boredom and/or being completely lost in their lives. When Amy (Maura Mannle), Sorina’s best friend, a frustrated work-from-home professional who is done with the dating app scene, calls her up, the last thing she would have imagined was her friend asking her to come by to do some LSD. As meek and gentle as Sorina feels, it wouldn’t have been an idea that she would have readily agreed to. However, her current state – losing her parents to the pandemic, living in her car without a job, and on the verge of abandoning her young daughter – makes her take the plunge. 

When she arrives at Amy’s doorstep, due to some fate of luck (or just narrative inconsistency), her ex-boyfriend Lenny (Hayes Dunlap) just happens to be delivering pizza nearby after failing to conjure up his next movie project. They quickly rekindle wherever they would have left off because meeting someone familiar in a time when loneliness is at the centre of everything does that to you. But when Lenny agrees to join Amy and Sorina for their acid trip, it feels a little out of place. Also, talking about out of place, the trio is also joined by a reluctant and burnt-out paramedic, Dale (director Sawyers himself) because Lenny messed up his pizza and Amy was convincing enough to let a complete strangers into her house because he might understand how to take the LSD that she has just discovered in one of her cabinets. 

Now, the four of them finally decide to do it together, but somehow overdose on the drug. The hallucinogen sends Sorina across what seems like a parallel dimension where her parents are alive, but Lenny’s dead. The other characters have similarly odd and surreal experiences where they have to tackle themselves and their current state of absolute loneliness, realizing that at some point, they might have to come to terms with it. It’s a novel concept, one that doesn’t just use the pandemic as an exploitative foreground. Director Sawyers is keen to use the hallucination as both a visual and emotional standoff for these characters. However, the cyclic nature of the narrative or the drug itself doesn’t allow much in the form of a concrete structure that leads these characters to have an organic arc. 

The result is a tonally inconsistent feature that knows what grief does to us as people but never understands how to face or tackle it. The moody nature of the trip within the film itself, aided by some really interesting visual motifs, might engage you for a while, but since there’s nothing concrete as a takeaway beyond how the power of community is one of the greatest healers in the world, the film falls short. The performances are pretty serviceable with Swayers’ super-edgy Dale being a clear off-kilter and forced of the lot. Everyone else does what they are supposed to, but none of their backstories or present state gets you as emotionally invested as it is supposed to. Nonetheless, “A Trip Elsewhere” can serve as an interesting diversion or a piece of nostalgia that takes you to a time of uncertainty about both the present and the future. 

Read More: 15 Great Films with Themes of Addiction, Drugs, and Alcoholism

A Trip Elsewhere (2025) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd
A Trip Elsewhere (2025) Movie Cast: Andrea Geones, Hayes Dunlap, Maura Mannle, J.R. Sawyers, Madeline Blue, James Fahselt, Janet Carter, Lauren Lebeouf