TOW. Is a judicial system, ostensibly built to protect the citizenry but susceptible to the manipulations of commerce and greed, inherently cynical? Possibly. Is a movie, replete with marketable stars, that explores an individual’s struggle against such a corruptible system, also cynical? Hopefully not. What about the critic who, in the face of such an effort, balks at its preciousness and critical distance from the nastier elements of such a struggle? Decidedly, yes.
Such is the intersection of predilection and intent at which I met Tow. I was drawn to it for the luminous, finally-getting-her-due Rose Byrne, but also for the direction of Stephanie Laing, a television veteran helming just her second feature. A fan of much of Laing’s work, I have recently been taken with Apple’s Your Friends & Neighbors, a Jon Hamm-starring dramedy set among the mansions and morbid self-interests of the Hudson Valley upper crust. That show possesses a twinned gloss and gravity, a visual sensibility that harmonizes perfectly with its narrative threads of deception and elitist ineptitude. How much of that can be attributed solely to Laing’s work behind the camera isn’t for me to say, but her contributions were enough to make me curious what she would do with a decidedly different milieu. That being, in the case of Tow, the struggle of an unhoused, mostly recovering alcoholic to recover her home (a 1991 Toyota Camry) from the avaricious business holding it for ransom.
In present-day Seattle, Amanda Ogle (Byrne), a licensed veterinary technician who doesn’t suffer bullshit, is staying in her car after a prolonged run of bad luck which, most pointedly, has separated her from her teenage child Avery (Elsie Fisher). When, after a promising job interview at a pet spa (gotta play the hand you’re dealt), her Camry is stolen and miraculously recovered, she is presented with a towing and storage bill she cannot possibly afford. Despite her initial successful efforts in court and to find temporary housing, the tow company in question continues to assess fees, rendering the whole situation untenable. Amanda enlists the aid of a crusading young attorney (Dominic Sessa), though, and begins a year-long legal fight for personal justice in the face of corporate and institutional indignity.
“Inspired by a true story,” Tow is very much of our moment, when culture at large and, more directly, nefarious influences within the democracy, seem bent on the erasure of the already marginalized. It’s an opportunity to excavate the struggles of the disenfranchised and put a face to, or at least rail at, the greed-monsters whose pursuit of ever-greater material wealth and smugness put so many lives in jeopardy.
The movie does that to an extent. That it doesn’t attempt to do it in the style of James Agee, Larry Clark or Diane Arbus may not be to my liking, but I can’t blame the movie or its makers for that. Because I think Tow is probably almost exactly what it sets out to be: a hard-luck story in an almost-forgotten mode, a universally accessible underdog tale that isn’t nasty, dismal or hard-edged at all. It flirts with the darkness (one of my more tenacious pet peeves), but never gets mired in it, which is actually one of its assets.
The movie harkens back to (forgive the Boomerism) a simpler time, when a movie about an individual asserting her humanity against an uncaring world, with a cast of luminaries (Octavia Spencer, Ariana Dubose, Demi Lovato, Corbin Bernsen all appear), might be something the culture could rally around. Its lightness and lack of depravity would have been compelling attributes. It may never have been my particular brand, but I can set aside my once and future prickliness to acknowledge that this kind of movie was and can still be good and nourishing.
But that rallying moment may have vanished altogether, leaving a movie like Tow to languish in the ether, unlikely to be seen and enjoyed by the multitude who could most benefit from it. It may not achieve greatness but it self-assuredly occupies a vacant space of compassion and humaneness we would all do well to frequent. R. 105M.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
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This article appears in Duane Flatmo Wants to Wow.