Review: Recovery (2021 SXSW)

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Title: Recovery
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek
Starring: Whitney Call, Mallory Everton, Julia Jolley
Runtime: 1 hr 20 mins

What It Is: Jamie (Call) and Blake (Everton) are two sisters living together and one of them just celebrated their 30th birthday…then COVID-19 struck and a pandemic closed up everything. Now, after receiving a message from their beloved grandmother’s retirement home. There’s been an outbreak. So now they have to hustle cross country to New Mexico in order to get her out of there. They’d ask their oldest sister Erin (Jolley) but she’s busy on a cruise in the ocean…during a pandemic.

What We Think: A lot of the jokes here miss. The two leads have chemistry as sisters but sadly they are let down by the direction and subpar scripting. Everton and Meeks don’t have to do much in the directors seat but I think a bit more creativity would’ve helped with making this stand out. As such there’s a hollowness to the whole thing. It plays as a ploy on the COVID-19 pandemic attempting to offer comedic relief but sadly coming out a tad wonky and not nearly what it wanted to be. It’s not all bad as the destination throughout it’s rocky journey is one that satisfies the narrative. Often with films like this we get some ambiguous ending that frustrates the viewer.

Our Grade: C-, There’s enough here to keep some audience members in stitches but for me it only works some of the time. Unfortunately most of it comes of as an unfocused mess. Certainly there were times along the way when it hits a proper note and those moments are quite good. Sadly they never stem from the actual comedy, or the situations, which is what a comedy is suppose to do. Still, if the description interest you check it out.

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