This Tempting Madness, a psychological thriller inspired by a true story, opens in select U.S. theaters and on video on demand on June 12, 2026. The film has been building a festival run since the 56th International Film Festival of India last November and a first wave of U.S. reviews this month. The story stars Simone Ashley as Mia, a woman who wakes from a coma with serious injuries and almost no memory of the violent incident that put her there. Her husband, Jake, has been arrested, and Mia is left to reconstruct a life that may not match the one she is being told to remember.
The premise is not a thought experiment. In an exclusive interview with The Direct, director Jennifer E. Montgomery says the film grew out of a real trauma in the life of someone close to her, and that the project began as a way to be useful to a friend whose brain was rebuilding itself one day at a time.
The True Story Hidden Inside the Film
In the interview, Montgomery traced the film back to a single real event, and the conversation turned on a single theme: how memory and self-narrative can drift apart when the brain itself is damaged. The story she told was not about a crime so much as about the difficulty of remembering one, and what that does to a person asked to trust her own mind. The film’s mystery is a byproduct of that gap, not the engine of it. The audience is asked to do the same kind of reconstruction the friend had to do in her first weeks of recovery.
The friend at the center of the story suffered a traumatic brain injury at the start of the events the film dramatizes. She woke to a world that had moved on without her, including a husband behind bars and a list of physical ailments the film is careful to put on screen. The injury is also the reason no one in the film can give her a clean account of what happened that night.
The injury left the friend with a memory window that, in the early days of recovery, was so short that the same hour-long conversation could be repeated twice in a single day because none of it stuck. Montgomery’s friend had to rebuild her short-term memory, piece by piece, before she could begin to learn the details of what had actually happened to her. The film is built on that gap, and the audience has to do the same kind of reconstruction the friend had to do in her first weeks of recovery. The opening title card tells the audience as much: the names have been changed, the strangest parts have been preserved. The same is true, in a different way, of the friend herself.
How a Morning Phone Call Became the Script
Montgomery did not set out to write a film. In the interview, she described the early recovery as a season of twice-daily phone calls, one in the morning and one in the evening, in which she tried to walk her friend through the events that led to the injury. The aim, at first, was simply to make the friend’s day less empty. For weeks, the calls were looped, because the friend’s memory could not hold past a few minutes at a time.
Eventually the friend could hold an entire hour, though she would still forget the conversation by evening. The turning point came when Montgomery suggested keeping a journal, in part so the friend could reread her own thoughts the next day. The friend resisted, then offered a half-joke: do you want me to do it, do you want to write a movie on it or something? Montgomery said sure, and the journal began.
It ran for 9 months to a year, and was, for a long stretch, the only place the story existed outside of medical charts. At some point, the friend handed the journal back and asked when the film was being written. By then, Montgomery and her husband, co-writer and cinematographer Andrew Davis, had begun to talk about taking the project to financiers. The friend gave them freedom with the material, and the script was written.
Both have called the process cathartic, in different ways. For the friend, the journal gave her a reason to keep writing; for Montgomery, it was a way to be part of her friend’s recovery without having to relive the original incident.
The Cast Stepping Into Mia’s Family
The film wraps its amnesia thriller around a family that has to absorb the aftermath of an event none of them can fully describe. Simone Ashley, best known as Kate Sharma in Bridgerton, plays Mia, the woman trying to rebuild her memory in a hospital bed and then at home. She is the audience’s only reliable witness to a story that is always slipping away from her.
Austin Stowell plays Jake, Mia’s husband, whose arrest is one of the first details Mia is forced to confront on waking. The supporting cast doubles as the family that surrounds her: Suraj Sharma as Ajay, Mia’s brother; Amol Shah as her father, Raj; and Zenobia Shroff, of Ms. Marvel and The Big Sick, as her mother, Lakshmi. Mojean Aria rounds out the named roles as Tony. Montgomery co-wrote the screenplay with Andrew Davis, who also serves as the film’s cinematographer.
The casting pairs Mia’s on-screen family with actors who already had range in thrillers and family dramas. Stowell, who appeared in Bridge of Spies, plays the husband whose guilt the film keeps re-framing. Sharma, who broke out with Life of Pi, plays the brother whose presence the audience can read as either comfort or warning.
| Actor | Role | Also known for |
|---|---|---|
| Simone Ashley | Mia | Bridgerton |
| Austin Stowell | Jake | Bridge of Spies |
| Suraj Sharma | Ajay (Mia’s brother) | Life of Pi |
| Mojean Aria | Tony | – |
| Amol Shah | Raj (Mia’s father) | – |
| Zenobia Shroff | Lakshmi (Mia’s mother) | Ms. Marvel, The Big Sick |
From a Los Angeles Soundstage to IFFI Goa
The film was shot in Los Angeles, with principal photography wrapping in January 2024. From there, it traveled a festival circuit that began in India and looped back to the United States through California’s Silicon Valley. The score was composed by Rebekka Karijord, who built the music around the same memory theme that runs through Montgomery’s script. The film was produced by Smoke Jumper Films, Mango Monster Productions, and CatchLight Studios. Vertical holds the U.S. distribution rights.
The film’s first reviews in the United States arrived in mid-June, on the eve of its theatrical and on-demand rollout. Audiences in India saw it first at IFFI, and in California’s Silicon Valley next, as part of the Cinequest marquee. The film opens on Friday in the U.S. on the strength of those festival notices.
- January 2024: Principal photography wraps in Los Angeles.
- November 27, 2025: World premiere at the 56th International Film Festival of India in Goa.
- March 14, 2026: North American premiere as a marquee selection at the Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival.
- May 6, 2026: Vertical releases the official trailer.
- June 10, 2026: First U.S. reviews begin to land, days before release.
- June 12, 2026: This Tempting Madness opens in select U.S. theaters and on video on demand.
What Early Reviews Are Saying
The earliest U.S. notices came in a review by Matthew Jackson for Bloody Disgusting on June 10, 2026. The review opens on the same title card the audience sees in the theater: a note that the film is tied to a real story, that names have been changed, and that the strangest parts have been preserved. Jackson describes the film as a stylish psychological thriller that yields twist after twist, while faulting it for straining to keep the pile-up of reveals coherent in the final stretch. The director’s framing of the source material has been consistent in press notes and on the festival circuit.
Festival programs and reviews have leaned on the same opening title card, which ties the film to a real story and notes that the strangest parts have been preserved. The note has been the throughline for the film’s marketing since the IFFI premiere.
For Montgomery, the core of the project has never been the mystery at the center of the film. It has been the question of what a person owes herself when her own memory of an event has been damaged, and whether the truth is the version she can keep telling. The project is built around the friend’s recovery, not the mystery of the original incident.
- Runtime: 92 minutes
- U.S. release: June 12, 2026 (theaters and VOD, via Vertical)
- World premiere: November 27, 2025, 56th IFFI Goa
- North American premiere: March 14, 2026, Cinequest
- Score: Rebekka Karijord
When the Storyteller Can’t Remember
The film turns on a small but consequential question that the audience has to answer at the same time the character does: is Mia an unreliable witness because her memory is gone, or because the version she is rebuilding is the one she can live with? Montgomery framed that tension in one line during the interview, a line the rest of this section returns to. The first reviews describe a film that keeps re-staging the question, with the audience forced to rebuild Mia’s life alongside her and to keep track of which version of the past the film is willing to commit to. It is also a film about a friendship that outlasts the project it grew into.
I think it’s the disconnect between what you want to believe and what the truth.
Jennifer E. Montgomery, director, in an exclusive interview with The Direct.
The script, written by Montgomery and her husband Andrew Davis, began as a way for a friend to be present in someone else’s recovery. The writing process is still framed by the two of them as a form of care as much as a creative project. The friend gave the filmmakers freedom with the material once they asked, and the script was written from the journal.
That bond is what the journal, and now the film, are built on. The film is a record of the friendship, not just a story told on top of it.
Where to Watch It Starting Friday
This Tempting Madness opens in select U.S. theaters and on video on demand on June 12, 2026, distributed by Vertical. The film is listed at a runtime of 92 minutes. Festival audiences have been sitting with the film since its world premiere at the 56th International Film Festival of India on November 27, 2025, and again at Cinequest in March 2026. For readers coming to the project for the first time, the practical throughline is short.
The film exists because a friend asked a director to help her write down what she could not yet remember, and a year of journaling became the spine of a script. For more on the actress who plays Mia, see Simone Ashley’s quiet exit from Brad Pitt’s F1 movie.
What the audience sees on screen is a thriller, but the project underneath it is a recovery, recorded in real time. The full exclusive interview with director Jennifer E. Montgomery makes that recovery the frame the film is meant to sit inside. The film itself is the script Montgomery and Davis wrote from that journal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is This Tempting Madness based on a true story?
Yes. Director Jennifer E. Montgomery has said the film is inspired by events in the life of a close friend of hers who suffered a traumatic brain injury. The opening title card states that names have been changed and that the strangest parts have been preserved, and the friend gave the filmmakers freedom with the material.
What is the true story behind This Tempting Madness?
The friend at the center of the film suffered a traumatic brain injury in a violent incident and woke from a coma with serious memory loss. In the earliest weeks of recovery, her short-term memory lasted only seconds at a time, which forced Montgomery to repeat the same conversations with her twice a day. The friend kept a journal for about 9 months to a year, and that journal became the basis of the screenplay.
Who plays Mia in This Tempting Madness?
Simone Ashley, who played Kate Sharma in Bridgerton, plays Mia. Austin Stowell plays her husband Jake, and the supporting cast includes Suraj Sharma as her brother Ajay, Amol Shah as her father Raj, Zenobia Shroff as her mother Lakshmi, and Mojean Aria as Tony.
When is This Tempting Madness released in the United States?
Vertical is releasing the film in select U.S. theaters and on video on demand on June 12, 2026. It premiered internationally at the 56th International Film Festival of India in November 2025 and in North America at Cinequest in March 2026.
Who directed This Tempting Madness?
Jennifer E. Montgomery directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with her husband, Andrew Davis, who also served as the cinematographer. The score is by Rebekka Karijord.
