The Julia Set Review: Chase Infiniti Furthers Her Movie Star Status In Engrossing Academic Drama [TIFF]

Chase Infiniti commands the screen in a film that everyone struggling with the confidence to show their brilliance and individuality needs to see.

Chase Infiniti burst on the scene last year with a stunning lead performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, and now takes center stage once again in The Julia Set, a Toronto International Film Festival world premiere that everyone struggling with the confidence to show their brilliance needs to see.

Marking the feature debut of writer-director Niki Byrne, The Julia Set stars Infiniti as Julia, a university student gifted in mathematics invited to join a group of similar prodigies studying for the Putnam Exam, a highly competitive undergraduate math competition. While navigating the pressures of the exam, Julia develops a romance with her T.A. and fellow math student Pascal (Christopher Briney) and finds her relationship with her best friend (Chloe Bailey) pushed to its limits.

The Julia Set Skillfully Explores The Invisibility Of Brilliance

The premise of The Julia Set, which teases a romance between a student and the her class' teaching assistant, seems to suggest something akin to Notes on a Scandal or A Teacher is in store. But Byrne concerns herself with far less sensationalist matters. She crafts her film around the rigorous pressures of academia, and the unfortunate tendency for people both disadvantaged and brilliant to dim their light for the sake of others.

Julia is a genius mathematician, with proficiencies far beyond her years, yet her demeanor and confidence suggest otherwise. While her new boyfriend Pascal is quick to showcase his skill and speak of the immense pressures he is under, Julia hides her excellence. She entered the world at a disadvantage and has never learned that she can take up space, especially when her intellect could open numerous doors she has yet to even approach.

In centering her film around this issue, Byrne comments on the often overlooked subtleties of privilege. Although the film only explicitly comments on Julia’s racial identity, and the marginal place in society this positions her, once, it nonetheless speaks to how kindness, an excess of humility, and the pressures so ingrained in our culture to erase oneself can lead a person to unduly prioritize others and make decisions that run counter to their greatest goals.

Midway through the film, Bryne’s exploration of these ideas becomes even more resonant thanks to a stellar supporting turn from Gillian Anderson. The X-Files alum plays Pascal's mother, who similarly dimmed her brilliance so that a man – in this case her husband, a detestably pretentious academic played by Jason Isaacs – could achieve his goals. Anderson is a quiet presence in much of her scenes, but, in the final act, really cements Bryne’s messaging with a poignant call to action to both Julia and, in turn, the audience.

Chase Infiniti Anchors The Julia Set With An Assured Performance

At just 26 years old, Chase Infiniti delivers yet another performance that would probably be a career-best in most actors’ filmographies. She brings a quiet assurance to the screen as a kind, giving, and extraordinarily intellectual character. Many of her best scenes involve Julia knowing the answer to an almost impossible math question, but biting her tongue, refusing to let the spotlight shine on her. Without any dialogue to convey the rich emotion underlying these scenes, Infiniti shows the audience exactly the kind of willful erasure she is reckoning with.

Although Julia's journey is compelling in its own right, the film becomes decidedly more interesting around the halfway mark, when Isaacs and Anderson are brought into the fold. Byrne interestingly parallels Isaacs and Anderson's relationship with the fledgling romance between Infiniti and Briney's characters. Scenes involving the four, specifically a particularly intense game of chess, are easily the film's most absorbing, and prove that splashy action or horror isn't required to make nail-biting cinema.

Resolving its narrative with precision and sensitivity to the issues it comments on, The Julia Set concludes on effective, albeit not exactly emotional footing. The journey Julia embarks on is certainly one the audience comes to deeply care about, although there is ultimately a bit of distance between the character's struggle and the emotions provoked in the viewer. Infiniti does a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard, continuing to affirm her status as one of the brightest and most exciting young actors working in the film industry today.

The Julia Set premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.

Release Date September 11, 2026

Runtime 112 minutes

Director Niki Byrne

Writers Niki Byrne

Producers Andrey Epifanov, Eleonora Granata-Jenkinson, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Gillian Anderson, Jeffrey Penman, Lee Stollman, Nick Scherma, Tayler Haynes

Cast

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  Christopher Briney

  Pascal

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