"Fighting Nirvana takes place entirely within the confines of a dead woman’s house, and revolves around her daughters and two others. The film's story falls right into that indie cliché of the conversation movie, putting people in a room and working them through their issues because the budget won’t let them go anywhere else, and at first the film seems in danger of being unable to overcome it. Luckily for the audience, it doesn’t take long to find its own voice. Writer and director Gabe Rodriguez’s film feels self conscious at the start. The writing has a feeling of false naturalism, and the acting is stilted as we’re introduced to Stephanie (Heather Cavalet), her boyfriend Bruce (Patrick Knighton), and his friend Jeff (Christopher Kloko). They are meeting Stephanie’s sister Alex (Renata Shamrokova) at the home of the girls’ recently dead mother. She said she had money hidden in the house, and the four set out to find it before the movers take her things and the house is sold. It’s not long into the search that the lights go out, and the conversation starts. There’s a recurring line, “Things change when you’re marooned in the dark.” This is true of the film itself. As the screenplay begins to deepen the characters, the actors really begin to inhabit their roles rather than play them, and Fighting Nirvana really comes alive. A highlight is a fantastic sequence where they all decide to shower, leaving three at a time to discuss everything from familial woes to lesbian cows. The cast and screenplay really shine here, revealing hints of character in subtle ways that deepen what we’ve already seen and what will come after. The four actors are all great in their roles, especially Shamrovoka. Her Alex is arguably the most developed character in the film and she handles the evolution well. Cavalet’s and Knighton’s roles are no less important and both perform naturally. They also share great chemistry that makes it easy to believe them as a couple in love. Too often in films like this, the clown is annoying rather than funny. So as Jeff, Kloko had the tightest rope to walk, and he doesn’t misstep. Rodriguez’s direction of his well written screenplay balances the performances skillfully. He seems to know the film’s at its best when the focus is on the relationships, and that’s where it’s largely kept. After a rocky start, the film is an entertaining and well made character study. It takes these people to some unexpected places, and it does it well." --Kurtis Kerby, IndieFlix