Facing mounting expenses and the unrelenting pressure of modern living, a down-on-his-luck cab driver is lured by a mysterious new app that promises easy money. A film by Michael Pierro, starring Nathanael Chadwick, Adam Goldhammer, Catt Filippov, Christian Aldo, Reece Presley, Lauren Welchner, Jono Hunter, and Sasha Gaponovitch.
SELF DRIVER
Michael Pierro
(2025)
In the evening, rideshare driver D (Nathanael Chadwick) parks his car on a rooftop lot to eat a burger. The passenger seat is cluttered with crumpled wrappers, plastic bags, and takeout containers. It’s clear that he’s been eating on the go all day. When his landlord calls, presumably about rent, D tenses up. He stares at the screen for a moment, then sends it to voicemail. Later, his girlfriend (Sasha Gaponovitch) calls asking when he’s coming home. She sounds exhausted, complaining that she’s been taking care of their baby all day. D tells her he’s making good money tonight because it’s Friday and he can’t afford to stop. He promises to be home by morning.
Later, D picks up a passenger named Nic (Adam Goldhammer) from the airport. During the ride, Nic asks if he can smoke inside the car. When D says yes, Nic looks surprised and mentions that most drivers won’t allow it. D shrugs it off, saying as long as the tip is good, he doesn’t mind.
When they arrive at the destination, Nic pulls out a business card and tells D he works for a startup looking for drivers like him. It’s a ridesharing app similar to VRMR but pays significantly more, plus there’s a signing bonus if D joins tonight. With D’s laid-back attitude, Nic says he could easily pull in $4,000 to $5,000 in a single night. D is skeptical because the payout seems too good to be true. Nic assures him the clients expect premium service and pay premium prices for it. As he gets out of the car, Nic tells D to take his time. No rush to decide. Whenever he’s ready, just give him a call.
D continues picking up more passengers, each one worse than the last: one singing obnoxiously the entire ride, another complaining the AC isn’t cold enough, one demanding bottled water, another needing tissues, someone griping about the dirty car, a bickering couple arguing nonstop, a passenger questioning his driving ability, one who left something behind and insists he turn around despite company policy.
D’s patience grows thin when he picks up two party girls and one of them starts feeling sick. He immediately offers to pull over so she can throw up outside, but her friend tells him to just keep driving. Eventually, the girl vomits all over the floor mats. D explodes, yelling at them to get the fuck out of his car.
Exhausted, D wastes aluable time cleaning up the mess. When he’s finally ready to drive again, the app alerts him that he’s exceeded his driving hours and will be automatically locked out for 8 hours due to safety regulations. D calls the number on the business card Nic gave him earlier. Nic tells him to meet up so he can get D set up with the app.
D remains suspicious as Nic lays out the payment details: $100 for completing the first ride, plus $1,000 if he drives for more than 6 hours. Despite his doubts, D agrees to try it. Nic takes D’s phone to install the app, mentioning it’s not available on the App Store but can be downloaded from their private website. This suggests the app is either in beta testing or operating in a legal gray area. Once the app is installed and D’s account is set up, Nic runs through the rules. Always do what the app says. No talking to passengers. If he declines a job, he’s done for the night. And if he quits mid-job, he loses all the money.
Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Michael Pierro in his directorial debut, SELF DRIVER is an impressive thriller about a rideshare driver who gets pulled into increasingly dangerous situations after signing up for a mysterious new app promising much higher earnings.
Nathanael Chadwick gives a great performance as the driver, maintaining authenticity in every reaction and decision despite being largely confined to his car with the camera constantly in his face.
One particularly clever narrative choice is the mysterious ridesharing app itself, which only displays simple directional commands like turn left, turn right, go straight, or wait, rather than a conventional map interface. This keeps both the driver and the audience in the dark about the destination, building tension with each new instruction.
I wish the film had provided more information about the mysterious ridesharing app. How exactly does it work? How do drivers even find out about it? Does the company handpick its passengers? Since drivers are making $100 – $2000 per ride, you’d expect the fares to be equally steep. Yet some passengers look like ordinary people who couldn’t realistically afford those prices.
The soundtrack by Antonio Naranjo is mesmerizing, elevating each scene without feeling overdone. It’s rare that I find myself craving more music in a film.
Personally, I loved the final act, which surprised me with an unexpected twist that propels the narrative from crime thriller into science fiction territory.
SELF DRIVER premiered at Fantaspoa Film Festival on 18 April 2024. It was made available on VOD in the United States and Canada on 8 May 2025.
Fantaspoa is an international film festival held annually in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Established in 2005, it is the largest dedicated festival for genre cinema in Latin America, focusing on fantastic films including fantasy, science fiction, horror, and thriller. The festival typically runs for about 18 days and showcases over 200 films, attracting filmmakers and audiences with screenings, Q&As, workshops, lectures, and special events. It aims to foster the study, diffusion, and production of fantastic cinema in Brazil and is considered a major film event in Porto Alegre.
