‘Mouse’ Trailer Unravels a Dangerous Web of Lies, Lust and Deception
‘Mouse’ Trailer Turns Lies, Lust and Loneliness Into a Slow-Burning Crime Thriller
The new trailer for Mouse introduces a world where loneliness, deception and carnal desire appear ready to collide, turning a seemingly simple connection between two strangers into an increasingly volatile crime story.
The award-winning feature from Japanese American writer-director and actor Kenny Riches opens in New York on Sept. 25 before expanding to Los Angeles on Oct. 16, with a national theatrical rollout to follow.
Written and directed by Riches, Mouse stars Riches alongside Sarah Coffey and Kimball Farley in a darkly comic crime drama built around characters who are not particularly interested in telling one another the truth.
Riches plays Denny, a lonely petty thief whose days are spent stealing bicycles, breaking into cars and living with his mother. His limited social life eventually pushes him toward a pen-pal service advertised through the classifieds, where he begins corresponding with a woman named Tess.
The relationship quickly gives Denny something he has been missing, but there is a problem. The version of himself he presents to Tess does not exist.
Denny begins constructing a fictional life of wealth and success through their letters, allowing the relationship to develop around an identity designed to make him appear considerably more accomplished than he actually is.
What Denny does not know is that Tess has created a deception of her own.
The pen-pal service is part of a scheme operated by Tess and her real-life boyfriend, Maury, who use it to exploit lonely people. When the couple encounters financial trouble, they decide to travel to Denny and take advantage of the supposedly wealthy man they believe has been writing the letters.
Once they arrive, both sides discover how little they actually know about each other.
The trailer suggests Riches is less interested in constructing a conventional crime story with obvious heroes and villains than watching several compromised people gradually become trapped by the identities they have created. Betrayal, attraction and lust appear to complicate the situation further as the characters’ competing schemes begin collapsing into one another.
There is a visceral quality to the footage, with the relationship between Denny and Tess appearing increasingly dangerous as the film moves beyond correspondence and into physical proximity. What begins with loneliness and fantasy looks poised to become a slow-burning thriller fueled by desperation and the consequences of wanting someone else to see a more desirable version of yourself.
That also gives Mouse room to examine class and status beneath its criminal setup. Denny invents wealth because he believes it will make him worthy of attention, while Tess and Maury see that supposed wealth as something they can exploit. Everyone appears to be pursuing connection, money or validation while simultaneously hiding the circumstances that made them vulnerable in the first place.
Riches also brings elements of his own Japanese American experience into the film. Although the story itself is fictional, the filmmaker has said its emotional foundation draws from navigating his Japanese and American identities. The family connection extends to the production itself, with Riches’ real-life mother playing Denny’s mother, whose correspondence with relatives in Japan becomes part of his otherwise isolated life.
Mouse arrives in theaters following an award-winning festival run. The film received the Grand Chameleon Award and Best Narrative Feature at the Brooklyn Film Festival, won Cleveland’s American Independents Competition and earned Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay honors at the Phoenix Film Festival.
The movie marks Riches’ fourth feature as a filmmaker. His debut, Must Come Down, premiered at Cinequest in 2012, followed by The Strongest Man, which premiered at Sundance in 2015 and was subsequently released by AMC International and Kino Lorber. His third feature, A Name Without a Place, premiered at the Miami Film Festival in 2019.
Riches has also worked as a producer on My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, which premiered at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, and Sanzaru, which screened at Slamdance the same year. He is a co-founder of The Davey Foundation and a partner in the production company Dualist.
With its combination of crime, uncomfortable intimacy, betrayal and characters building entire relationships around carefully manufactured identities, Mouse looks positioned as a different kind of thriller, one where the danger may come less from the initial con than from what happens when everyone involved finally discovers the truth.
Mouse opens in New York on Sept. 25 and Los Angeles on Oct. 16, with a national rollout to follow.
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