Paul Downs Colaizzo (director)
(studio)
15 (certificate)
103 (length)
01 November 2019 (released)
30 October 2019
Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell) for all her outgoing fun with booze, men and life is not actually a well person. Which she finds out one day at the doctor who tells her that she has to get fit cos at 27 life is catching up with her.
So deciding to get fit and the gym not appealing very much she decides to start running. Baby steps at first but then with the help of her previously annoying neighbour Catherine (Michaela Watkins) and Seth (Micha Stock) she joins a running group and things start of move forward and weight slides off.
There’s still the matter of money so Brittany takes a job house-sitting for a wealthy couple who aren’t around too much. There’re rules to obey but these are there to be broken by fellow sitter Jern (Utkarsh Ambudar) who has moved in. Initially not happy with the situation or with Jern, she sort of comes around to the situation and it develops in a way that has been seen many times before. Naturally they are found and turfed out.
However the main element of the story is Brittany’s preparation for the New York marathon, and the heartache that brings with it. What we also get to see is the development of Brittany’s character that shifts away from the happy go lucky of the previous sequences to find a far darker person. What you see is not usually what you get and what emerges is a closed, somewhat judgemental person, and something of a hypocrite.
What is essentially a quite slight, though heart-warming and based on a true story, is well played by the cast and Bell elicits some sympathy for someone who is far more complex than initially presented. The script is solid; the cast allowed to banter and well held by director and Paul Downs Colaizzo.
The main problems is the film tries to address a multitude of issues that affect many people from low self-esteem, defensiveness, selfishness and delusion in a barrelling manner that doesn’t have much true resonance, making it feel over long and contrived. From a promising start and middle it bumbles to the end into cloying sentimentality.