Lou on Netflix- better than I thought it would be...

I decided to watch "Lou" on Netflix and it was surprisingly good. 

When I say I was surprised, I mean it impressed me more than it should have. There are three things about this film that really stood out about it. The first was that it was very well written. The second was that it took a pretty common premise and stripped it down like a dancer named Candi (that "i" on Candi was intentional). And lastly, it has what so many movies these days don't... a soul, and an actual soul.   

I was bored and wanted to watch something out of my normal genre at the end of a very long day. Lou didn't really look like anything special by the descriptor. To be honest, it looked like another over-the-top, "super-woman" movie with all female leads. The kind of movie where the good guys are female and the bad guys are male. You know, a film where "the message" is really clear. Thankfully, it wasn't that, it was a surprisingly refreshing movie about dark family secrets, being accountable for your family, manipulation, and revenge (among other things- not to spoil it). 

Let's get started.

The writing in this movie is somewhat of a rarity in the film business these days. The dialogue in this film is great. It doesn't try to explain what is happening, it shows the audience what is happening while the characters speak under the duress of action. In other words, they say shit that an actual person would say in a certain situation. No stupid catchphrases, no stopping to explain to other characters what is happening, no one-liners, just realistic and appropriate dialogue. The writers of this film didn't waste time using dialogue to spoon-feed the plot points to the audience.  They created dialogue based on the characters and their traits, and they stuck to their guns on it. The characters stay for the most part in their lanes and behave consistently given the action sequences, reveals, or resting points in the film.

The movie was written to be a good movie, not an over-the-top one. They focused on a simple plot. One that they stripped down and made beautiful. It goes something like this: 

A mother and her daughter are on the run and hiding in the Pacific Northwest from her psycho ex-husband. He just happens to also be an ex-navy seal who wants his kid back, so much so that he is willing to murder anyone in his way, including Mom. Mom is living in a no-name town, renting a trailer and struggle-grinding her way through life. So much so, that she can barely pay the rent to her landlord Lou. And of course, on the night of the big storm, Dad catches up to her and kidnaps the daughter.  When Mom discovers her child is missing she runs next door to use Lou's phone, but Lou is not what she appears to be. The two team up and go after the estranged husband. Along the way, some dark family connections are revealed, some fears are overcome, and to character is built.  

Not much, we haven't seen before, right? Wrong! At a glance, you would think you have seen this movie before, like a whole lot. I guarantee you, you haven't. You will however find it in the same section as those other movies- in the action/suspense section. 

One of the things that stood out in this movie is that the "strong females" are actually strong females. The writers didn't just write in a man and take away the gender, and scream at the audience: "I can do anything you can do, and I can do it better!" Nope, they kept the femininity of the characters and instead made them into bad bitches in a tight spot. This isn't a story about womanpower versus manpower. This is a story about a woman in trouble transcending her fear so she can save her daughter from a Navy Seal gone rogue. It's a story about an old lady who has been through so much that she no longer fears anything, including psycho ex-military types. She is tough as a coffin nail and isn't going to take shit from anyone.  In the end, it's not their vaginas that give them that power, it's protecting their children, or being accountable for them- not to spoil anything. I would rank the character Lou as one of the best female badasses of all time- right up there with Ellen Ripley from Aliens and  Sarah Conner from The Terminator. She is that well-written. 

Lastly, this movie is not over the top. It doesn't try to make itself bigger than other movies. In fact, the budget was rather modest for a modern movie. The actors aren't big-budget Hollywood stars. The special effects are used sparingly, saved for the end of the film. This is all surprising, considering one of the producers of this movie was J.J. Abrams. I recently talked about this in my review of Indy 5, some movies try too hard to be big films. Lou doesn't try to be a big film, it tries to tell a story and be a good film. And that is something that's hard to find in this day and age. The result is that this movie has a soul, and it shows when you watch it. The writers, cast, and crew cared about it, and while it might not have turned too many heads, it certainly has moxie. 

The unfortunate part is that when the movie was over, the almighty Netflix algorithm decided that "The Mother" was the next best movie in the genre. It was not. That movie falls very short of everything I talked about above. It's kind of entertaining, but like with Indy 5, watch it when nothing good is on and go into it with zero expectations- maybe you might think it's "meh". 

Lou, on the other hand, I would recommend you watch when you are all watched-out on your regular stuff. It's well written, it's well acted, and it's filmed well. But, it's also refreshing, and surprisingly good, and it might keep you guessing if you let it.  

Cheers!