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Thursday, May 16, 2019

The Hollars (2016)


This is the sort of move that I really like but is not all that popular these days.  It is a family comedy/drama about the Hollars.  John Hollar ably played by the director and actor John Krasinski) is a struggling graphic novelist who lives in New York City. He returns to his rural hometown (the movie was shot in various Mississippi counties) after learning that his mother Sally (Margo Martindale) has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and re-enters his old world with regret and resistance. 
The family is dysfunctional to start with and worse now.  You can immediately see why he ran far away and never came back.  His brother, who just got fired by his father from the family business and is also living with them, complains that he never calls, but why would he?  These people will suck you in and drown you in their misery. 
Meanwhile his pregnant girlfriend Rebecca (Anna Kendrick, who definitely doesn’t get a role that she is capable of here) waits for John back in the big city initially, but after some disturbing phone calls, gets herself there in order that things not go too far off the rails.  The movie plays out with just the narrowest of casts, demonstrating why it is both easy to leave home but hard to shed your past.

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