Premise: A teenage girl goes on a thousand-mile road trip to the nearest abortion clinic that doesn't require parental approval.
This is a tough movie to get right. Even if you don't have an issue with abortion, it's tough to pair the seriousness of the decision with the wackiness of a road trip comedy without undermining one aspect or another. Oh course, if you are against abortion, this movie is a hard pass.
As a road trip movie, this is OK. It's more of a smile comedy than a laugh out loud comedy. It strings together a nice assortment of misadventures and complications from the stolen car to a state fair. The anti-abortion family abducting them was a bit much. Personally, I'm for abortion while doing my best to understand the complexity of the issue, but that family is too arch in a way that isn't interesting. It ends of cheapening both sides of the debate without even getting some good jokes out of it. What bothers me the most though is that this is a "needless complication" movie. Most of what goes wrong is because someone is needlessly stupid or seems to be aware that they are in a teen road trip comedy, where they know they have plot armor.
Mostly, I'm referring to Barbie Ferreira. You know, some kids are social rejects for a reason. It's not that no one is giving them a chance. They just suck to be around. That's Ferreira's character, Bailey. To be fair, the movie does call her on that. It's part of the reason she and Haley Lu Richardson stopped being friends. I don't think my issues with this character are Ferrerira's fault. I think she's a fine actress. She's good in Euphoria. I'm not sure anyone could've played this character in a way that I would like, because she's more of a plot contrivance than a character.
Really, if you are seeing this movie, it should be for Haley Lu Richardson. I really think it's a matter of when not if she's going to be a big star. She's good in everything I've seen her in. She's just plain likable no matter the character. Think, Emma Stone a decade ago*, right before she was getting cast in "grown up" roles. It's a little hard to buy Richardson as the detail-obsessed, fastidious character in this, because she's best when she's cutting loose. Again, that's more of a function of the script than the performance. When the movie calls on her to sell the seriousness of a moment, she delivers.
*It shook me to my core that I nearly said "a young Emma Stone".
I'm not sure what the great version of this movie would look like. With less contrivance, there wouldn't be a movie, but that's the exact thing that bothered me about it. It needed a softer touch in a lot of places. The boyfriend is way too extreme. Same with the anti-abortion family. And the abortion clinic scene goes a little far idealizing the process. Then again, who really wants the heavier version of this movie? That would be such a slog.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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