Lou
As a storm approaches, two disaffected neighbours have to pool their resources to combat an unseen menace…
Stormy waters: Allison Janney and Jurnee Smollett
Action-thrillers are two-a-penny on Netflix, but not like Lou. Lou herself is a bitter, grumpy, tough-as-nails hermit who lives on an island in Washington state. More significantly, she is a sixtysomething woman played by Allison Janney, who executive produced the film with her co-star Jurnee Smollett. Female two-handers – a three-hander if you count Ridley Asha Bateman as the latter’s eight-year-old daughter – are pretty rare to come by in the genre market. Furthermore, Lou is directed by Anna Foerster and co-written by Maggie Cohn, so one might have had high hopes for a character-driven nail-biter with a feminine sensibility. And it all starts so promisingly, with Janney taking no prisoners as Lou Adell who, as a mighty storm approaches, takes all her money out of the bank, berates her tenant (Smollett) for being late with the rent, burns all her old photographs and then props a gun beneath her chin.
This proves as gripping a start to a film as one could hope for, particularly with Janney in the driving seat, an actress who has drawn consistent acclaim for her supporting roles but who has never really been given her due as a leading lady. Lou, maybe, could do for Janney what Paris, Texas did for Harry Dean Stanton and The Straight Story did for Richard Farnsworth, character actors given showy, starry parts in the autumn of their careers. But what Lou doesn’t do is warn its audience in advance that it’s really a formulaic B-movie with a terrific opening and an even better leading lady. To most viewers, Janney will be known for her role as the White House press secretary C.J. Cregg in The West Wing and for her Oscar-winning turn as Margot Robbie’s tyrannical mother in I, Tonya. Here, her Lou is gruff, strong and independent, not one to suffer fools gladly, if at all. She has a plan and it’s up to us to work out what that plan is – but there’s the storm, and then a criminal act that neither Lou nor her neighbour, the equally tough and independent Hannah Dawson (Smollett), saw coming.
What’s great about the film’s first half hour is the raggedly beautiful scenery (with British Columbia standing in for Washington) and the overturning of our preconceptions about the characters we are beholding. In an emergency, your nasty neighbour might be just the person you need to turn to… Initially, Lou recalls Leave No Trace with its solitary characters trapped against magnificent woodland, but then unravels as the movie lurches into… well, that would be telling. Let’s just say that it gets sillier and sillier by the minute, and the duff dialogue starts mounting up like detritus in an unexpected cyclone. And it all culminates with the silliest line of all, nailing the coffin tightly shut on what was once a perfectly gripping premise.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Allison Janney, Jurnee Smollett, Logan Marshall-Green, Ridley Asha Bateman, Matt Craven, Greyston Holt, Daniel Bernhardt.
Dir Anna Foerster, Pro J.J. Abrams, Jon Cohen and Hannah Minghella, Ex Pro Allison Janney and Jurnee Smollett, Screenplay Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, Ph Michael McDonough, Pro Des Brent Thomas, Ed Matt Evans and Paul Tothill, Music Nima Fakhrara, Costumes Tish Monaghan, Sound Paul Pirola.
Bad Robot-Netflix.
107 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 23 September 2022. Cert. 15.
