![]() The longer the movie goes on, the more predictable its story becomes-and all told, there's too much early degradation and not enough scenes showing Leslie doing the hard work of righting her own ship. Some of "To Leslie" has a kind of heartwarming 1990s Sundance-indie feel, though the unpretentious acting and filmmaking, especially during the raw first act, disguise that. The character of Leslie and Riseborough's performance in the role are greater than the film that surrounds them. In the love story aspect, as in others-such as Nancy's cartoonish single-minded determination to publicly humiliate the heroine whenever she can-"To Leslie" makes choices that are more conventional than one might wish for, especially considering how efficiently the film rivets our attention simply by creating a psychologically plausible adult woman and letting us watch her exist. Sweeney knows what he's getting into we eventually get a backstory that explains why he's so kind and nonjudgmental around people with Leslie's problems, even when she's at her most frazzled and pathetic. And yeah, you guessed it, he's sweet on her, and Riseborough and Maron have such immediate, easygoing chemistry that you know there's no way the film will be able resist the temptation to pair them up for a happy ending, even though in real life a relationship like this is equally likely to end with the police or fire department pulling up at the hotel in the wee hours. But Sweeney's a good person who seems to want to make everyone's life better, even if it means losing money and getting personally hurt. Often characters who are this nice turn out to be hypocrites, exploiters, or worse. After initially chasing her from the property, Sweeney offers her a job as a maid and throws in a room for her to live in. He even pretends to have mistaken Leslie for somebody who'd been applying for the maid job, which gives Leslie a little gift of dignity before she's even gotten to know him. Sweeney is as generous as Leslie is grasping and manipulative. Sweeney and Leslie are a great screen team. He's as pleasant, uncomplicated, and straightforward as Leslie is mercurial, tortured, and internalized. The question is whether Leslie can see it, too. When she finds her way to a little old motel run by a benevolent man named Sweeney ( Marc Maron) and his goofy partner Royal ( Andre Royo), we see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Things do get better for Leslie, but the first section of film is hard to watch as it establishes the heroine's network of damaged (or shattered) relationships (including her ex-friends Nancy and Dutch, played by Allison Janney and Stephen Root) and show the darkness she swims in every day. ![]() Leslie eventually finds her way back to her rural hometown, the place where she won the lottery, and where she is thought of as, in her words, "a piece of shit." What did she do to feel that way about herself? It's not a mystery, and screenwriter Ryan Binaco and director Michael Morris don't treat it as one, because this is a story about people who could actually exist, and don't discuss the past in detail unless there's a reason to. But that she can't live with him, and the only rule in in his house is that she can't drink. James warns his mother upfront that she's welcome to stay with him until she gets her life together. It's not the sex she's after, it's the money, attention, and substances the men might provide. Sometimes she'll muster whatever confidence she has left and go into a bar or roadhouse looking to catch a man's eye and get him to take her home. Leslie is an alcoholic who'll do any other substance within reach. She can't borrow from anyone anymore because she owes everyone money. She's ruled by her urges and appetites, so she doesn't even pause to consider the rules and norms she's breaking in order to satisfy them.
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