Prime Time: Brittany Runs A Marathon (2019)

The feature debut from writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, I would advise everyone against seeking out Brittany Runs A Marathon if they are seeking the big laughs and hilarity mentioned in some of the quotes used to sell it. It's not that funny. I'm not saying this in a dismissive way. It never really feels as if it's meant to be funny, beyond the obvious amusement to be had as viewers watch Brittany begin her journey with no small amount of anger and frustration.

Jillian Bell is Brittany, a woman living in New York who has settled into a pattern of drinking and having fun with her friends, not looking after herself too well, and becoming slightly overweight. This isn't a problem for Brittany, at least she doesn't think of it as a problem until a doctor tells her that she should aim to lose weight and work on some healthier lifestyle choices. That starts her thinking about just what her main role in life is. And it leads to her eventually joining a running club that she is invited to by her neighbour, Catherine (Michaela Watkins). She also befriends a fellow runner, Seth (Micah Stock), and gets a dog/house-sitting job, where she meets a strange free-spirited man named Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar). All of those people, plus her brother-in-law (Demetrius, played by Lil Rel Howery), help Brittany to figure out her way forward through life. But the road ahead won't be easy, and won't always necessarily be without setbacks.

Inspired by a real person (Brittany O'Neill) who was a roommate of the writer-director (maybe still is, for all I know), Brittany Runs A Marathon works as well as it does because it feels quite honest when it counts most. I put off watching this for some time because I assumed it was going to be a gender-switched version of Run, Fat Boy, Run. That's simply not the case. Brittany setting her sights on a marathon goal is just one aspect of the way she starts to recalibrate her vision, and her self-image. The marathon is a huge deal, I'm not going to deny that, but it's also insignificant in comparison to what else Brittany starts to work on while getting herself in the kind of condition required to run such an event.

Bell gives a very good performance in the lead role, starting off with a performance similar to many others that she's given us before showing the slipping of the mask and fighting constantly against her guard being let down. Watkins and Stock lend her strong support, paralleling the characters they play in the movie. Ambudkar comes along at just the right time, livening up the film when it needs a small boost, and Howery is a shining beacon of goodness whenever he's onscreen (well . . . his character is, and he plays him well). It's also worth mentioning Alice Lee, who plays Gretchen, the kind of friend you only ever want as a friend when you don't realise that you're worth better friends. Lee is suitably inconsiderate and awful.

Fair play to Colaizzo for not taking the easy option here, as this could have just been a straightforward comedy vehicle for Bell. I'm sure that would have worked just as well for many people, but this way of treating the material allows for some more thought-provoking moments, which are more of a surprise after those opening scenes that help to welcome you into the story with some laughs. Because of that important decision, you may not get quite what you wanted from this, but you may get something even better.

7/10

Netflix And Chill: Cam (2018)

The feature directorial debut of Daniel Goldhaber (other than this he has two shorts under his belt from about five years ago), Cam is both what you expect it to be and, in a number of impressive ways, so much more. The script by Isa Mazzei (also making a debut, developing a story based on her own experiences as a former cam girl) is smart and incisive, building up the tension and atmosphere on the way to a finale that is as satisfying as it is thought-provoking.

The basic story revolves around a young woman named Alice (Madeline Brewer), who makes a living by being a cam girl named Lola. She is desperate to move up the rankings, initially into the top 50 but ultimately to the number one spot, but there are certain rules she has in place that some think will work against her. She deals with keeping her online life separate from her real life, keeping some generous clients happy while also trying to maintain a safe distance, and serious rivalry from at least one other cam girl (who, at one point, offers to strip as long as viewers help to send Lola back down the rankings). But that's nothing compared to what happens next. Someone takes over Alice's account and becomes Lola. She has the same look as Alice, seems to live in the same building, and starts to cause problems. Alice can't find a way to get her account back, reduced to having to look on with mixed feelings as the new Lola goes further than she ever would . . . and starts to move up the rankings.

There's a chance that a number of the elements worked throughout Cam are inevitable strands inseparable from the main narrative thread but I really don't think that's the case, and to say that is doing a great disservice to Mazzei. She's crafted a tale here that attempts to show cam girl life without judging the main characters, at least not for their chosen way of earning money, and also shows just how close the positive and negative qualities are. Making a completely new identity is fun, it's liberating, but it also requires you becoming much more protective of your real identity. You sell your company, your looks, your confident and sexy image, and viewers/customers who completely buy into it all can just as easily turn ugly, either looking down on people who work in the adult entertainment industry, assuming they can make a real connection and take things further, or worse. Even those who don't dismiss cam girls probably assume that their life is just one candy-coloured session after another of evenings spent lying on a bed and telling generous viewers that you're feeling really horny. Technology is allowing a lot of people to make their living in an isolated, and seemingly safer, way but it's also hackable, and everything online has the potential to eventually go viral.

All of these things are mixed in here, with Mazzei's script given solid treatment from Goldhaber, who knows how much to show to ensure that this doesn't feel completely sanitised, yet never dives headfirst into gratuitousness or sheer exploitation (which could have very easily happened). It's a good balance. This is a film about a cam girl, it's not an actual cam show.

Brewer is very good in her main role, very good indeed. In fact, the fact that she is also playing her doppelgänger is something that is easy to forget, despite both characters being identical. She manages to portray the second Lola as someone just lacking . . . something. A soul? Boundaries? It's hard to pin down, sorry, but the performance from Brewer sells it superbly. Melora Walters does well as the oblivious mother of Brewer's character, and David Druid is also good as the brother who knows how his sister is earning her money nowadays. Patch Darragh and Michael Dempsey are two fans, the former a more naive and nervous type while the latter knows how things are played (but assumes he can always still "win"). Those men are different, yet they're ultimately the same, both projecting on to Alice something that isn't actually there. Imani Hakim, Flora Diaz, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Quei Tann, and Samantha Robinson play other cam girls, with Robinson particularly enjoyable as the mean Princess_X.

Cam only has a few moments of outright horror, in the more obvious use of the term, but it's a film that is infused from start to finish with a different kind of horror, be that associated with self-identity, self-harm, or trying to earn a living in a saturated industry that has more workers trying to push things further and further while viewers constantly want more for less (or free, nobody seems to love a freebie more than men who have been titillated). You could even say that the horror is underlined beyond the end credits. When the film finished, much like a cam show, it's your reflection you see. And it's been there all the time, hidden by the more thrilling imagery laid over the top of it.

8/10

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