Sundance Film Festival 2025 – Dylan Wardwell made a name for herself as a model. She’s been featured in Vogue, Cultured, and The Cut, after shooting a Vivienne Westwood campaign. Like her modeling career, her short film, Sweet Talkin’ Guy, explores gender identity. More specifically, it gives the dating scene a trans perspective.

Wardwell, who’s credited as Miss Dylan in the film, plays the main character, Dylan. She goes on dates with three different men. There’s Isaac (Jimmie Fails), Sam (Daniel Olson), and Alex (Pierce Abernathy). Miss Dylan, who co-directed and co-wrote the film with her brother, Spencer Wardwell, chose to not have her character speak at all. The scenes shift from date to date at rather rapid speed, cutting back and forth among the dates. However, during the runtime, Dylan doesn’t utter a single word. Instead, the men ramble on and on. The more they talk, the more they bury themselves in a hole. At one point, Isaac says he has a fetish for trans women, before quickly correcting himself. Meanwhile, Alex asks if they can go back to Dylan’s place, since he has roommates and doesn’t want them to know he’s interested in a trans woman.

Though the men may not intentionally mean any harm, they don’t understand how crass their comments come across to a trans woman, even when they attempt correction. Yet, Dylan plays it cool, sipping a drink on Sam’s yacht, or just turning away from the camera and smirking to the side as the men prattle on. Yet, even if Dylan doesn’t speak, we see everything from her perspective. This includes the absurdity of the dates and how each man basically wants to fetishize her. It’s clear these men don’t really want to know her or have something long-term with her. Either that, or they’re simply uncomfortable with their sexual preferences.

Sweet Talkin’ Guy contains a few laughs. More importantly, it’s a sharp social commentary about gender identity from a trans perspective. Wardwell has already had quite a modeling career. Now, I can’t wait to see what she does in the future as a director, in the role of Miss Dylan.