'Recovery' Review
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 20 Minutes
Production Companies: Buzzfeed Studios
Distributor: N/A
Director: Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek
Writer: Whitney Call, Mallory Everton
Cast: Whitney Call, Mallory Everton, Julia Jolley
Release Date: N/A
Two directionless sisters brave a cross-country road trip to rescue their grandmother from a COVID outbreak at her nursing home.
This is going to be a recurring pattern where I just gradually become more drained by each COVID-related movie I have to screen and review. There are so many COVID-related narratives, docs, and shorts being made that it’s exhausting. Just let it die. During SXSW 2021 alone, there have been SEVEN corona-related movies. I don’t know what kind of lucky streak I’ve been on, but I’ll be damned… somebody made a COVID-related road trip comedy that’s… REALLY GOOD?!
Known for their work on the YouTube channel JK! Studios, best friends/writers/actresses Whitney Call and Mallory Everton are in their first feature venture together that uses the pandemic as the basis for a road trip comedy that is not only tolerable, but also charming, funny, and has a whole lotta heart.
Two 30-year-old sisters, Jamie (Whitney Call) and Blake (Mallory Everton), have very little going on in their lives outside of each other. Jamie is an elementary school teacher and Blake just wants to get her love life started. The film starts with a pre-COVID birthday scene where they are eager for the year ahead of them, until it cuts to March 30th, the beginning of the pandemic where the two only have each other to depend on. They get word that the virus has gotten to their grandma’s nursing home, so they contact their older sister Erin to see if she can pick them up. However, Erin and her husband are on a cruise ship so it’s up to Jamie and Blake to go on a cross-country trip to get their grandma back.
On all accounts, this film shouldn’t make any sense. A road trip comedy that uses the coronavirus as the basis of its narrative sounds like the worst one-note idea, yet Call and Everton thoroughly make it work. You can immediately feel the history of their work in comedy, for their chemistry is hella strong. They have great communication, along with their light and fun back-and-forth banter and comedic timing. Most of the film takes place in a car and has a standard “point A to point B” storyline, but the leads surprisingly form a thorough, character-driven screenplay that’s surprisingly effective and enjoyable.
Everton and Call are clearly aware of the otherworldly emotional and physical drain of the pandemic, so they take a smart approach to make this feature digestible and enjoyable by making the comedy and tone light. There’s a fully realized screenplay with wit and integrity at play that has no right to work the way that it does. Instead of reminding you of how insufferable the experience is or trying to be politically current with the subject matter, they riff on the absurdist-yet-surreal experience of Americans’ carelessness during the pandemic. Though some of the humor (and also the urgency of the story) is reliant on the familiar fear of contact with everything and irresponsibility of Americans, none of the jokes ever come across as mean-spirited or cynical. The light tone and humor are consistent (if this was given an MPAA rating, it would be PG-13) and the comedy doesn’t aim for anything tasteless. Apart from the subject itself, this is far more enjoyable than a ton of other road trip comedies in recent memory.
Everton and Call burst onto the scene with energetic and charismatic performances, displaying strong, natural comedic talents with their own sense of style so they deliver actual feats of hilarity during the journey. With each pit stop set piece throughout the journey, there’s a surreal joke waiting around the corner that’s either verbal or physical, and most of the time, the punchline works. I found myself constantly cracking up. Yeah, some jokes are dated on arrival, like the Fauci references, but they’re delivered like genuine talking points in their conversation rather than an in-your-face reference.
Much like the leads’ banter, the film itself is fast-paced, accommodating for its short run time, and it’s shot with a surprising heft of quality to give it a cinematic look. Cinematographer Brenna Empey does a fantastic job making this low-budget indie comedy breathe a style that a film a studio would distribute. Hell, I’d argue that due to the shot composition and tight editing, this is leagues above the way studio comedies are constructed today.
The fact that this is the first feature for Call and Everton as screenwriters (Everton as co-director as well, along with Stephen Meek as director), is bizarre. It’s bizarre that the first feature to showcase their talents was a COVID-related road-trip comedy that had no right to work… yet they did it. They set themselves up for a difficult challenge and they accomplished it with so much heart and wit that it leaves you wanting more. I wish nothing but the best for the duo and hope they write more features together in the future, hopefully with the same characters but without our current reality as the basis of the plot. I adored these characters and this movie more than I should’ve and I hope it finds success in the future. A whole team of people really made a COVID comedy that’s funnier and more constructed than the few studio comedies from the past year. Now I’ve seen everything.
