Film Forum

Two brilliant tour-de-force performances are at the core of Annabelle Attanasio’s debut feature. Set in the hard-scrabble mining community of Anaconda, Montana, Camila Morrone (evoking young Anne Hathaway) stars as a teenager who is her father’s caretaker, OxyContin supplier, and bail-provider; her father, played by James Badge Dale, is a PTSD-afflicted Iraq War vet whose erratic personality betrays flashes of the charm that was once his meal ticket. The Hollywood Reporter calls the film: “An indelible portrait of the double-edged sword of filial love… An intimate drama, rich in lived-in detail (revolving) around a tough and tender father-daughter relationship, an emotional prison that’s also a lifeline, compellingly rendered in the superb performances (of the principals).” – Sheri Linden

USA    2019    89 MINS.    UTOPIA

Reviews

“Watching [Camila] Morrone’s performance… reminded me of that ‘star is born’ moment at Sundance when I first saw Sam Rockwell, Tilda Swinton, Ashley Judd, Kerry Washington, and Jennifer Lawrence. All broke out of small indies. Morrone’s star potential is real. (She) is bare-faced, reactive, and unadorned as an adult child who adores her only parent… And much of her contained performance is in eloquent, silent reaction shots, negotiating with her demanding boyfriend, her volatile father and his doctors. ”
– Anne Thompson, IndieWire

“An almost perfectly realized drama that feels as if it was time-warped in from forty or fifty years ago, when people still wanted to see movies about people living in the actual world… in the tradition of great American cinema chamber pieces like THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE, THE GREAT SANTINI, and more recently, WINTER’S BONE. The performances are almost uniformly superb, particularly by Morrone, who carries much of the film’s tension in closeups of her face… and Dale, one of the great, largely unsung American actors. This is the kind of small, great movie that goes largely unnoticed upon first release but gets discovered later. Later should start immediately.”
– Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

“An assured feature debut for Annabelle Attanasio… [a] skillfully nuanced drama… never obvious or melodramatic, delivering a satisfying degree of emotional resonance while providing James Badge Dale an arresting role as the problematic dad. Newcomer [Camila] Morrone ably carries the film on her shoulders.”
– Dennis Harvey, Variety

“The film shines a spotlight on two compelling American actors - both on the cusp of stardom in their own ways - and reintroduces us to a third, whose true calling might have been found behind the camera.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire