'April X' review: Storrie's dystopian sci-fi draws sharp criticism

Connor Storrie, the actor who broke through in the hockey drama Heated Rivalry, stars in the dystopian sci-fi thriller April X, reviewed by The Guardian on September 29, 2026 as "sketchy in every sense of the word."

Filmed mostly on location in Bucharest, the film casts Storrie as Baxter opposite Lilly Krug as his twin sister April. They scrape by on the fringes of a criminal economy in a concrete megacity, where she makes wigs and sells downloads of her "uncannily clear" dreams.

What is the plot?

The premise drew comparisons in the review to two 1990s films built around dream-recording technology: Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days (1995) and Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991).

Baxter runs petty crimes with his screw-up associate Ronny (Tourialay Akbari). The pair fall into debt with the local kingpin Klein (Serban Pavlu), a character The Guardian said sits "just on the edge of antisemitism" through his persistent Yiddish phrases and parsimonious behaviour.

When Baxter empties his and April's joint accounts and still comes up short, April vanishes — along with her archive of recorded dreams and memories. The action then jumps five years forward. April remains missing, yet turns up repeatedly at a local brothel in cloned form, reproduced as a sex worker.

What did the reviewer say?

The Guardian faulted the screenplay for borrowing heavily from other films, writing that the picture "gets progressively ickier and more exploitative" as it advances into its trafficking storyline. The reviewer granted Storrie credit, noting that "the star of Heated Rivalry does his best in this human-trafficking yarn."

The review also flagged Klein's Jewish-coded characterisation as a credibility risk.

Who is in the cast?

• Connor Storrie as Baxter
• Lilly Krug as April
• Serban Pavlu as Klein
• Tourialay Akbari as Ronny

The review did not name a director or screenwriter.

Why does the dream-tech premise matter?

April's recorded dreams function as both commodity and plot engine. Her archive of memories — what she has sold, captured and stored — becomes the through-line Baxter follows across the five-year gap.

The cloning reveal reframes the film from a missing-person thriller into a body-horror narrative about the commodification of consciousness. The Guardian explicitly anchored the premise in the 1990s sci-fi canon.

What comes next?

April X lands as Storrie's first major screen role since Heated Rivalry established him as a lead. The combination of a hostile review in a major UK outlet and explicit concerns about antisemitism-adjacent characterisation raises the stakes for the film's festival run and any streaming pickup.