By Michael Colford
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Paul Downs Calaizzo
Starring: Jillian Bell | Lil Rel Howery | Micah Stock | Michaela Watkins | Utkarsh Ambudkar
Country: united_states
Year: 2019
Running time: 103
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7671064/reference
Michael says: “I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON, the opening night film of the 21st annual Provincetown International Film Festival. Aimless, out-of-control woman in her late 20’s struggles to get her life on track… by deciding to run a marathon. Just didn’t draw me in. And yet, through the strength of the script, and the strong performances, it turned out to be a worthwhile, well-intentioned and smart film.
“Brittany, played with unflinching honesty by comedian Jillian Bell, parties hard, is never on time for work, and finds her self-esteem by making people laugh. When a visit to the doctor to score some Adderall yields a diagnosis of obesity and a scolding to get healthy, Brittany is at first offended, and then slowly reflective of the direction her life is headed. Brittany’s journey is long and very difficult, and as you would expect in this type of movie, filled, Sisyphus-like, with lots of setbacks as she begins her path of self-improvement. She grudgingly hooks-up with a couple of “friends” in a running group, and they set themselves a goal to run the NYC marathon in just under a year. She quits her partying, she gets a second job, and she finds her self in a love-him/hate-him relationship with another drifting, millennial lost in his transition to adulthood. The film ends up where you probably think it will, and overall, it’s inherently pretty formulaic.
But what wasn’t so formulaic was they way Brittany gets to her destination. Writer/director, Paul Downs Calaizzo, is a playwright, and to write his first film, he started from a point that he was familiar with… character. So the characters in BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON are pretty fleshed-out, complex, and interesting. Brittany herself is allowed to be a pretty unlikable, mean person. The reasons she is this way are clear, but neither the script, nor the performance, let her off the hook, pushing her into her judgmental nastiness many times, making it challenging to root for her. But, like her friends, Katherine and Seth, we don’t want to give up on her, and ultimately, we get the pay off both we, and Brittany, are looking for.”
Chris says: “A slightly above average mainstream indie greatly elevated by Jillian Bell, whom at times comes off like Amy Schumer without the calculation and smarm. Between this and SWORD OF TRUST, I want to see more movies with her and the just-as-talented Michaela Watkins as co-stars.”