Riseborough Rises ‘To Leslie’ Above Feel-Good Indie Drama Poverty Porn

There’s a scene in To Leslie where the titular character played by Andrea Riseborough is being kicked out of her son’s apartment for drinking and stealing his roomate’s money. She pleads with him by repeatedly calling him “baby” but it’s fallen on deaf ears. It’s ironic because she’s acting like a child who’s been caught by a parent trying to fight whatever discipline is going to come down.

The movie is reportedly loosely based on the life of writer Ryan Binaco’s mother. Even though no time frame is set, it looks like it’s set in the latter part of the 20th Century. There’s no cell phones or even smart phones. Phone calls are made on pay phones. And characters drive old model cars, mostly pick-up trucks that make a lot of noise with every turn of the steering wheel. It looks like a movie that was produced during the 1990s indie movie craze with the same type of aesthetics, as everyone wearing denim jackets which is a staple of poverty porn indie movies.

The plot isn’t that good and genric. But Riseborough’s performance is the glue that keeps it together for the near two hours of screen times. It would’ve worked better at an hour and a half, no longer than 100 minutes with credits. The movie opens with a montage of pictures of better times before a news broadcast of Leslie holding one of those oversized checks as she won $190,000 in the lottery. You can just see in her reaction that it’s like pouring gasoline on a fire that is already out of control.

But seven years later, she has squandered the money. And there’s belief that those around her helped her squander it before they dumped her. She’s being kicked out of a cheap sleazy motel with no money to pay. She hangs out in a bar eyeing anyone who will buy her a drink and possibly let her sleep after the one-night stand she has to give up for the trade. She calls her son, James (Owen Teague), who invites her in but tells her she can’t drink if she stays with him. That doesn’t work.

She goes and stays with Owen’s grandmother, Nancy (Allison Janey), and her husband, Dutch (Stephen Root), but that doesn’t work out because she’s spotted at a bar. She crashes near another run-down motel whose proprietor, Sweeney (Marc Maron), runs her off and takes the suitcase she accidentally leaves to rifle through. But his assistant, Royal (Andre Royo), recognizes a photo of Leslie and tells her history.

Now, Sweeney feels guilty. So, when Leslie returns to the motel area trying to find the suitcase, he plays it off like she’s a job applicant whose phone call he didn’t return. He offers her a job but knows she’s going to screw up. And she takes some time but eventually gets sober and works hard. This part of the movie goes stale and cliche and I almost felt the movie would take a different approach.

Leslie and Sweeney bond. He invites her to a community event because his daughter and granddaughter will be there. But so is Nancy, Dutch and Pete (James Landry Hebert), who tried to sexually assault her after buying her food. So, here’s a scene where Leslie feels all the “That’s her” scenes from people who appear they don’t have any room to talk. Most of it is egged on by Nancy.

It’s all cliched and unneccessary. Maron gives a great little story about why he’s divorced as his wife was an alcoholic too. But there’s a twist. It also explains why Sweene is more sympathetic. More scenes like this make To Leslie far more authentic rather than the generic deus ex machina scenes. Even in the 1990s, $190,000 seemed like a lot of money and it would be hard to squander it unless no one stepped in and told Leslie what to do. And the people around her (Nancy, Dutch, Pete and everyone else) probably were willing to stick their hands out and ask for help. They used her, but maybe Leslie wanted to be used.

Very few movies about addicts and drunks are willing to look at enablers as part of the problem but don’t see themselves as the problem. During the news footage scene, James at 13 played by Drew Youngblood stands near Leslie with a look on his face where he’s not happy. He knows what’s coming down. He knows everyone standing off camera is just waiting to ask for a few dollars the camera stops filming. Leslie isn’t smart enough to keep it all a secret and take James and relocate to start anew.

The movie and Riseborough’s performance itself became part of Oscar controversy even thought I can’t really fully understand it nor explain it because it sounds like what others have done. Since it was reportedly produced under $1 million and made only $31,353 at the box office, I guess some at the Academy felt it shouldn’t have been nominated. But Riseborough gives a tour de force performance. Despite being an English actress, her west Texas accent makes her sound like she was born and raised in Odessa, Texas.

Criticism was that many more A-list celebrities were so impressed with her role they took to social media to praise it or something like that. The movie nor Riseborough’s performance was mentioned by the Academy, but it’s obvious who they meant. Sadly, other great performances by actresses in 2022 went unrecognized. Mia Goth’s performance in Pearl and Aubrey Plaza’s performance in Emily the Criminal were just as good as the other five nominees. I remember a time when the Academy was scrambling to find actresses in little seen movies like this because they couldn’t find five actresses at all.

What do you think? Please comment.