'Group: The Schopenhauer Effect,' Produced by Professor Jack Lechner, Gets Theatrical Release

As anyone who works in the entertainment industry will readily share: great things take time. Such is the case with Group: The Schopenhauer Effect. The feature film produced by Film Chair and Associate Professor of Professional Practice Jack Lechner was recently acquired by Abramorama and made its theatrical premiere on March 13, 2026. The CEO of Abramorama, Karol Martesko-Fenster '88, is an alum of the Columbia Theater Program. For this film which got its start seven years ago as a Youtube webseries, the road to theatrical release has been a winding one.

The film follows eight participants in a Manhattan therapy group and the drama that ensues when it's revealed that newcomer Alexis is actually a filmmaker who's joined the group with the intention of creating a television series about it. This “threatens the group's balance and exposes everyone's vulnerabilities. Connections shift and secrets surface—a crisis brews. Can the group continue to confide in one another, at the risk of falling apart?”

“It’s an amazing story actually,” Lechner shared of the project’s beginnings. “I met Alexis Lloyd, who is the filmmaker and creator of the show and of the movie, when we were both expats in London in the early 90s. I was working at Channel Four, and he was running Pathé UK as a distributor. Alexis then became a filmmaker, made some acclaimed short films, made a feature film, and joined the directors branch of the Actors Studio, moved to New York, and then became fascinated with a novel called The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D. Yalom.”

Irvin D. Yalom is a well-known group therapist, and his novel The Schopenhauer Cure tells the story of a therapy group. It follows Julius Hertzfeld, a distinguished psychotherapist with an impressive career, who is suddenly confronted with his own mortality. He re-examines his life and work, wondering: has he really made an enduring difference to the lives of his patients? And what about those he’s failed and what has happened to them?

Lloyd was drawn to adapt the novel “partly because,” as Lechner continued, “his own father had been a therapist, and he had spent his life running away from therapy, and then realized this was kind of his destiny, to actually make a film narrative about therapy.”

Group, in both the case of the webseries and the feature, was not filmed in the conventional way. Rather than working with a full script, the actors who played the patients were briefed on the emotional moments they would have to reach during the course of filming, “but then improvised their lines and figured out, in their own way, in their own time, how to hit those beats, which then led to the final epiphany.” This “final epiphany” was Lloyd’s decision to shoot the film, “in uninterrupted ninety-minute takes. That's how Lloyd did the web series, and that's how we did the feature: uninterrupted, ninety-minute takes in which Alexis, as the director, had spent literally months working with the actors, prepping them as a group,” said Lechner.

After the premiere of the webseries on YouTube, it was clear that the team had something special on their hands. “I've just never had this particular kind of fervency for anything I've been involved in from the people who love it,” said Lechner; but the project was soon hit with unexpected roadblocks. “While we're trying to figure out the feature film, TV series, all the other permutations, the [COVID-19] pandemic happened,” said Lechner.

Rather than stepping back when the world fell into disarray, Group changed with the rest of the world, confronting the universal hardship head-on. “We made a second season on Zoom during the pandemic, which was easily the hardest thing I've ever been involved in. We had to get cameras and sound equipment to each one of the actors. We recorded the whole thing on Zoom, but then with each person shooting individually, so that we could edit their individual takes into [the finished shot]. It was a technical nightmare, but it worked. Honestly, I think the second season is even better than the first season,” Lechner shared.

In the six years since the initial release of the project, it looked as if it could take on other iterations. “We partnered with a couple of different major production companies who tried taking it out. But then we decided, well, we need a major star to join. We talked to a bunch of major stars, some of whom really thought hard about it. We got the nicest letter from Jesse Eisenberg, who wasn't free, but just thought it was terrific. Then we had this bizarre story where there just wasn’t anyone who would do it [without] redoing it and making it what they wanted it to be.” However, the team stuck to their vision.

The feature, now acquired by Abramorama, stays true to the initial concept of the series with one addition. The character of the filmmaker, played by Thomas Sadoski. The arc of Sadoski mirrors the true story of Lloyd making the film. He himself, in the process of doing research for the project, joined a therapy group, and when the group discovered his intent they were up in arms.

When it comes to projects that take years to come to fruition, it raises one question. How did everyone know to stick with it? For Group, one foothold was their consistent meetings and the relationships they formed. “I think one of the ways that we've kept this thing going is that the team on the show—I say the show, but that includes the movie—meets every week on Zoom, and we've done that now for six years. Even when nothing's happening, we still check in with each other.”

These check-ins not only built accountability, but they built community. “Not to be too corny about it, but we've all become kind of like brothers, going through this process together. On top of that, there's the bond with the actors who are just so incredible. If it were just me, I probably would have given up years ago, but you want to deliver for the whole team and for those actors,” Lechner shared.

Now the promise of the project is being delivered. Group: The Schopenhauer Effect is currently playing at Quad Cinema in New York City, where you can catch a screening through April 2, and will thereafter expand to select cities across North America.  

Watch a trailer for the feature film below: