Lukita Maxwell makes young characters credible without advertising the effort. We like her unforced presence in an ensemble, though the writing in Shrinking and Backrooms gives us more reservations than her acting does.
Fi1m perspective
In Backrooms (2026), Lukita Maxwell and Finn Bennett behave like people who have grown up filming everything. Their Kat and Bobby carry the camcorder half of the film, and neither seems to need an explanation for having a camera running. Maxwell makes that habit feel ordinary, which gives the strange surroundings a little more credibility. We were frightened by the humming strip lights and damp yellow carpet; having recognisable young people behind the camcorder helps the fear take hold.
Her first series-regular role was Delilah in Generation (2021), followed by Alice in Shrinking (2023), a part sustained across multiple seasons. Much of her work asks her to play young people dealing with grief, identity and family, and her lack of fuss suits those parts. Her film roles include Iris in Afraid (2024), taking her into horror before Backrooms. A move into horror gives her different circumstances to react to, but does not by itself tell us how much else she can do.
Shrinking pairs her with Jason Segel as Alice's father and places her in an ensemble with Harrison Ford. Her handling of grief is worth attending to, but it cannot repair the programme's hurried treatment of it. We found Ford's dry comedy the strongest reason to persevere, and Segel's vulnerability does not answer our doubts about the therapist's broken boundaries. Maxwell gives Alice emotional weight without seeming to press for our attention.
The camcorder work in Backrooms is similarly worth noticing without mistaking it for a reason to recommend the whole film. Maxwell and Bennett are convincing together, but the script starts explaining the maze and the fear drains away. We would welcome a part that asks more of her than keeping an ensemble believable. Try Shrinking for Alice and Ford's dry humour, with fair warning that its writing is less persuasive than its cast.
Biography
Lukita Maxwell is an Indonesian-born American actress. She was born on 27 October 2001 in Jakarta, Indonesia, and spent her early childhood in Bali before moving to the United States, where she settled in St. George, Utah. She was homeschooled and briefly studied architecture at Pratt Institute.
Maxwell began acting in 2016 with a role in the series Speechless. She played Delilah in the HBO Max series Generation (2021) and stars as Alice in the Apple TV+ series Shrinking (2023–present). Her film roles include Fern in The Young Wife (2023), Iris in Afraid (2024), and Kat in the A24 film Backrooms (2026).
