Delayed Reaction: Run

Premise: A paraplegic girl being home schooled suspects her mother may be up to something nefarious.

 

The headline for this movie is that it's the first Hollywood moving starring a wheelchair user since the 1940s, which is both surprising and predictable. There have been, what, 50,000 movies in the last 80 years. Statistically, you'd think someone would've thought to hire an actual wheelchair user in a movie with that many attempts. Then again, it's super easy to cast a known actor who can just pretend to use a wheel chair. Overall though, the fact that Kiera Allen is actually wheel-chair bound doesn't really matter for the movie. I mean, it helps with authenticity, but I suspect most people watching the movie will just assume she doesn't actually have problems walking. Good casting regardless.

 

So, let's get to the movie itself. Run is Aneesh Chaganty's follow up to 2018's Searching, which was my favorite movie that year. He trades off the confines of a story told entirely from a computer screen to the restraints of a girl with a lack of mobility. I appreciate his attraction to a good challenge. It's a fairly small and straightforward story. Chloe (Kiera Allen) is a high school student with a number of health problems. Her mother (Sarah Paulson) homeschools her and takes care of her. But she starts to realize her mother might actually be causing her harm rather than trying to help her. While I'm not here to spoil the movie, I will say it is exactly about what you are thinking. I don't even think the movie aims to hide it.

 

It's a shame that Sarah Paulson plays psychos so well, because she seems like a lovely woman in real life. Run has her very much playing to her strengths though. Allen is a newcomer to movies and acquits herself well in her first film role. Chaganty is rapidly becoming one of my favorite filmmakers for showing someone figuring things out. Both John Cho in Searching and Allen in this spend much of their movies with no screen partners, quietly figuring things out, and it's exciting in both movies. I'm actually a little sad that Allen doesn't get to share screen time with anyone other than Paulson for 95% of the movie, because her other interactions with people are pretty fun. I love the scene of her cutting in line in the pharmacy.

 

I enjoy how the movie resets the stakes for the situation. The fact the Allen can't walk makes many acts more harrowing, and the movie does a great job showing that. For example, after she's climbs across her roof to get out of her room, it's so deflating to realize her mom also broke the wheelchair lift on the stairs.

 

I don't want to overpraise the movie. A lot of it doesn't really track. I'm not sure I believe that it took 17 years for Allen to get curious enough to question her mother's motivations. I think her mother is too sloppy to believe she pulls off this ruse for so long. Perhaps it really is easier to kidnap, poison, and raise a child than I think it is. I'll note this as a parenting lesson for the future.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend