Slumming in the Sticks

 

TO LESLIE (B) - Your patience will be tested as to whether you can endure this poverty porn and anxiety exercise about an alcoholic woman reaching another rock bottom six years after having won the lottery. Andrea Riseborough's haunting performance as Leslie is so authentic you might not have the guts to last the two hours of wallowing and desperation.

It doesn't help that she's surrounded by a supporting cast leaning heavily into the corn-pone. It is difficult to stay in the story when you have Hollywood types, raised in the northeast, slathering on the southern drawl. Allison Janney has her moments as Leslie's nemesis; her character Nancy is seethingly resentful that she had to raise Leslie's son, James (a typically mopey Owen Teague). And then there is Marc Maron, turning in another shaky performance, as Sweeney, a kindhearted motel owner who hires the destitute Leslie to clean rooms. Maron was an odd man out in Lynn Shelton's "Sword of Trust," and he shows no more range here as the one-note good guy. (Apparently Maron's role was originally slated for John Hawkes; that's quite a step-down.)  Andre Royo and Stephen Root are wasted in fringe roles.

But this is Riseborough's show, from beginning to end. But she is essentially too good, highlighting several weaknesses -- the so-so cast, the labored script, and the plodding pace of the production. Her take on the character is so raw and searing -- which is not to say that it's overdone in any way -- that it overwhelms everything around it. It is probably one of the all-time great depictions of addiction, and you ache for her at all times, even during the bittersweet ending, which offers the hope of redemption. But too often the plot is weak, the pace slow, the surrounding characters dull -- and you wonder if this is anything more than a master class in acting by Riseborough.

This is only the second film written by Ryan Binaco ("3022") and it is directed by TV journeyman Michael Morris ("Better Call Saul"), making his big-screen debut. They wallow in Leslie's condition. They smother the soundtrack with classic country songs that often are too precisely on point for Leslie's latest predicament. Their default is not so much to brutalize Leslie's addiction but to belabor it. Riseborough might leave you in awe, but she's also likely to leave you feeling, as one character notes, "rode hard and hung up wet."

SHELTER IN SOLITUDE (C+) - I just can't recommend a movie that -- no matter how entertaining at times -- is structured around a preposterous idiot plot.  This one is ridiculous, even if it has the low hum of amusing rural characters.

Siobhan Fallon Hogan (Kramer's girlfriend on "Seinfeld" way back in the day) is a talented comic actor, and puts her heart into the screenplay, about a washed up country singer who improbably befriends a death-row inmate. Viv (Hogan) is a hot mess; her juke joint has been closed by COVID (and has been robbed during the shutdown), and she likes to drink and sleep a lot in her sloppy home. Her brother Dwayne (a solid Robert Patrick) runs the prison, and Viv somehow manages to get a job overnight guarding a prisoner facing the electric chair, noble Jackson (Peter Macon). 

If you can make it over that logical leap, pace yourself -- there are plenty more hurdles to come. Would you believe that Jackson is an innocent man who was just trying to protect his daughter from a rapist? Viv tracks down the daughter, revealing more and more illogical plot contrivances in order to build up a mountain of sympathy for poor Jackson. By the end of the film, the story has gone beyond being cartoonish. 

But things pass along in a folksy manner for an hour and a half, and Hogan and Patrick do make for a delightful bickering brother-sister duo. Quirky characters, sporting southern accents, come and go. Viv abides. And it's all rather inoffensive, even if it's far-fetched.

BONUS TRACK

"To Leslie" begs for old-school country cred via its soundtrack full of ringers from the classic era. The best is an all-time favorite from Waylon Jennings, "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way":

Leslie sits in a bar at a crucial point in the movie, and the song is just a little too spot-on -- Willie Nelson shortening Waylon's title to three words, "Are You Sure":