Butler's Cinema Scene

Sarah Paulsen, Keira Allen

“RUN” My rating: B-

90 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Essentially “Run” is a two-hander about an overprotective mother and a disabled child.

But there’s considerable nastiness percolating just below the surface of Aneesh Chaganty’s new Hulu thriller.  Over the course of 90 minutes we — along with the film’s teenage protagonist — undergo a shocking education in the excesses of the human heart.

For as long as she can remember Chloe Sherman (Kiera Allen)  has been confined to a wheelchair. She’s home schooled by her doting mother Diane (Sarah Paulson) and while not precisely a shut-in (they’ll go shopping in their small town and spend an occasional night at the movies) Chloe’s first-hand experience of the world has been severely limited.

Which is why she’s pumped to be sending out college applications.  Finally, she’ll expand her horizons.

It becomes obvious pretty early on in the screenplay by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian that Mama Diane isn’t  thrilled to be losing her little girl. In fact, her maternal needs are leading to a full-fledged meltdown.

Actually, that train left years ago, as we’ll learn when a curious Chloe begins really examining  her life, the weird medications her mother keeps pushing on her and a locked drawer of papers leading back to her birth.

Keira Allen

Halfway through “Run” becomes an escape drama, with Chloe  realizing she is her mother’s captive.  She cannot walk, but she’s smart and has impressive arm strength; in a nail-biting sequence she escapes her  bedroom prison, squirming out a window and pulling herself along a sloping second-story roof.

A couple of things elevate “Run” above the average.

First there’s yet another great Sarah Paulson crazy-lady performance (“American Horror Story,” “Ratched”).  Few actresses are so adept at suggesting severe mental/emotional rot beneath a seemingly benign exterior. And when she finally lets rip…stand back.

And then there’s the performance of Keira Allen who is indeed disabled (something I didn’t know until after viewing the movie). This makes “Run” kind of a big deal in the special needs community…why shouldn’t disabled actors have the opportunity to portray disabled characters?

Here the filmmakers didn’t have to sacrifice acting ability for physical realism.  Allen has a wide-eyed innocence that gradually fades with her realization that the origin story her mother has always told her is total bunk.

| Robert W. Butler