Bunnylovr: Virtual Isolation in the New Generation
by Emma Batterman
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Katarina Zhu proves to be a triple threat in her debut feature film Bunnylovr (2025), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this January. The writer, director, and star opens the film on a pair of fishnet tights, the blue glow of a laptop illuminating her character’s soft flesh. Rebecca, our protagonist, lounges on her bed as she converses with her camera. Rebecca’s a cam girl, a performer who streams live broadcasts performing erotic acts for those inclined to pay. It’s a modern take on a profession that has existed for millennia and introduces us to Zhu’s contemporary lens of the world as a member of Gen Z.
As we follow Rebecca’s daily routine outside the glare of the screen, there’s a monotony present in its suffocating ordinariness. With the help of cinematographer Daisy Zhou, Zhu doesn’t give us anything to gawk at in the pale, colorless New York cityscape. Even Rebecca herself seems to float between her thankless secretarial job, her white-walled studio apartment, and the door of her ex-boyfriend’s apartment. Outside of the nightly performances in front of her loyal virtual audience, she regularly visits her friend Bella’s painting studio as she poses as her muse. Played candidly by Rachel Sennott, Bella prods for any update on Rebecca’s life, leading to Rebecca abandoning her studio and into the hurried streets of Chinatown where we meet Rebecca’s terminally ill father (Perry Yung). A gambling addict whose only objective seems to be spending his last days playing cards on the street, we see her father attempt to reignite their relationship as he drags her along as his “good luck charm.” As Rebecca attempts to navigate this rekindled relationship, however, her second life as a cam girl becomes complicated when an obsessive client, John (Austin Amelio), sends her a pet bunny to play out his perverse fantasies. Slowly, our main character’s life begins to unravel as she clings to John’s attention.
Zhu’s portrayal of Rebecca as a sex worker is no accident. There’s a common reactionary theory in recent feminist movements of sex work being a liberating force. The woman commands the man’s desire and thus, the relationship. To her credit, Zhu plays with this notion and exposes its effect on the digital loneliness modern women face under the patriarchy. Rebecca’s desperation for intimacy through her anonymous clientele while simultaneously isolating herself in her daily life results in a vulnerability all too easy to manipulate under the guise of a transactional exchange—I expose the most intimate parts of myself for you, and you pay my rent at your discretion.
There is, however, an underdeveloped theme in this film of avoidance as it connects to the previously mentioned Gen Z lens Zhu steeps the audience into. A growing disquiet is infecting members of my generation when it comes to personal relationships in the digital age, and Zhu displays this on screen in a frustratingly feeble manner. Zhu’s main character, while evasive to any real connection, is constantly seeking intimacy. It’s hard to see why without attempts at deeper analysis. From her presumably absent father to her ex-boyfriend who only seems to use her when he wants to get laid, we can assume she’s crouching—alone and bruised—in the shadow of the men in her life. This presumptuous reading of her behavior, however, only works when we as the audience attempt to fill in the gaps as Zhu broaches these themes halfway.
Running at just under 90 minutes, the film doesn’t lend us enough time or space to grant credulity to these self-sabotaging acts nor to find any satisfaction in resolution. Even Rebecca’s relationship with her father, a strong emotional motivator for her, felt half-baked in its lack of cultivation. I felt myself becoming more and more aggravated as she continued to shove herself deeper into her own melancholy for no discernable reason. Every time she opened the chat with her ex-boyfriend, I was openly dumbfounded as to why she hadn’t just blocked him despite acknowledging his toxicity.
Sennott’s character felt like a breath of fresh air every time she was on screen, providing a blunt analysis of Rebecca’s follies at the height of my frustration. Though Bella fell into what seems to be just Sennott playing herself in all her witty frankness (a running theme I’ve noticed in most of Sennott’s characters), it was a much-needed break from the self-destructive elusiveness of Zhu’s protagonist.
Despite the lack of thematic follow-through, I still found Bunnylovr to be a thought-provoking modern analysis of women in the age of computerized loneliness and a promising debut feature. Zhu’s ability to capture her character’s crushing isolation on screen through both a captivating performance and immersive direction only proves her staying power. This is a film made by and for Gen Z. Katarina Zhu is providing a taste of what a new generation of filmmakers has in store for an audience raised in the age of digital social currency.