FILM REVIEW –

Oct. 8, 2022 – James isn’t happy to see her. Nobody’s happy to see Leslie. Leslie is an alcoholic who’ll do any other substance within reach. She can’t borrow from anyone anymore because she owes everyone money. She’s ruled by her urges and appetites, so she doesn’t even pause to consider the rules and norms she’s breaking in order to satisfy them. Sometimes she’ll muster whatever confidence she has left and go into a bar or roadhouse looking to catch a man’s and eye and get him to take her home. It’s not the sex she’s after, it’s the money, attention, and substances the men might provide.

James warns his mother upfront that she’s welcome to stay with him until she gets her life together, but that she can’t live with him, and the only rule in his house is that she can’t drink. You know how that turns out. Leslie eventually finds her way back to her rural hometown, the place where she won the lottery, and where she is thought of as, in her words, “a piece of shit.” What did she do to feel that way about herself? It’s not a mystery, and screenwriter Ryan Binaco and director Michael Morris don’t treat it as one, because this is a story about people who could actually exist, and don’t discuss the past in detail unless there’s a reason to.

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