Run

I realize this is my first written post this month, but I hope the preponderance of video reviews have been making up for it!

One of them was for Run.

As I made clear, I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it (despite the slow start).

This is a masterpiece. I’m not going to claim it’s to film what Hamlet is to literature, BUT I will tell you the exercise my AP English teacher had us go through before we read Shakespear’s magum opus.

She had us take out a piece of paper and then had us write down how we felt as she asked,

“Imagine your father has just died.”

“Imagine your mother has just remarried…after about a month.”

“Imagine the man she married is your father’s brother.”

“Imagine your father’s brother secretly killed him.”

“Imagine your father’s ghost wants you to kill the brother as revenge.”

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Poor, tortured prince.

We can go on a similar journey for our protagonist in this film:

“Imagine you’re trapped in your home.”

“Imagine you’re an asthmatic in that situation.”

“Imagine you’re also a paraplegic.”

“Imagine you have a captor keeping you from escaping even when you are resilient enough.”

“Imagine you have no family or friends outside of your captor.”

“Imagine she’s your own mother.”

“Imagine you find out she’s been poisoning you.”

Yeah, pretty much.

I hope I’ve convinced you to watch the film at this point. Director Aneesh Chaganty does a fantastic job with the whole movie down to the smallest element. That includes the score, the cinematography, the writing, and the acting. Great job by both leads – Sarah Paulson, whom I’ve praised in the past, and Kiera Allen, in her film debut. I just learned the latter uses a wheelchair in real life so it’s awesome she got a stellar acting role!

Apparently this was the only previous major thriller to have a wheelchair user in the lead role.

That’s as much as I can say without marking

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but I really want to say more. The movie’s ultimate twist blew my mind. I’ve often been fascinated by stories about babies/small children who were kidnapped but raised in a normal home and grew to love their abductors the way any child would their parents. Of course, such cases are rare – generally anyone morally bankrupt enough to kidnap a child will also sexually abuse them (orrrrrrr a kidnapped child in a normal, loving home would have no reason to suspect anything and thus wouldn’t alert authorities). The movie’s situation is interesting – Diane abducted Chloe when the latter was a newborn and wouldn’t know any other parent. Diane must have carried, fed, changed, dressed, put to sleep, and potty-trained Chloe. Chloe is now a beautiful near-adult, and Diane did all the work raising her. Thus, for Chloe, Diane is ”Mom” and will always will be, not just because Chloe doesn’t know her true parentage but because Diane earned it.

Granted, Diane smothered Chloe and wouldn’t let her leave home, but Chloe thought it was because Diane was protective of her special-needs child. Chloe’s horror, upon learning Mom was the one who made her disabled, deliberately did that to maintain control over her, and only even became her mother illegally, is almost unfathomable. Chloe can’t help but feel the love a child would for her mother who (seemingly) lovingly raised her until near-adulthood, but now her struggle becomes learning to cut the cord (ironic metaphor when dealing with a fake mother) of a woman who gained that bond because of psychopathic behavior.

Her struggle is utterly wrenching, and so beautifully conveyed by Allen, who I hope becomes Hollywood’s first disabled major star.

Some think this movie is based on the Blanchards. But the fact that Chloe is still beautiful helps drive home the point that she DOESN’T need to be dependent on Mom.

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What a film.

Bottom Line: Watch it, you Hulu subscribers!

Up Next: More Aneesh Chaganty!

Questions? Comments? Please share below.