Monday, June 25, 2018

Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town (2017)

I came in to this movie expecting a stinker.  I normally hate movies involving a downward spiral and that’s fully want I expected this to be.  Fortunately, if there was a downward spiral, it happened before the start of the main plot.  It starts with a woman talking to a girl, presumably her younger self, in a monochrome red scene.  I found myself asking what I had gotten myself into.  I considered walking out, but I decided to stay.  I had already purchased the ticket, after all.

After this scene, we meet Izzy.  She wakes up next to a guy.  Her best option would seem to be the walk of shame until she sees a postcard and realizes that there may be more to this guy.  She wakes him up to find out that he doesn’t have any memory of the night before, either.  He winds up seeming like a decent guy.  This winds up being a pretty good parallel for the movie.

After this scene, Izzy finds out that an ex-boyfriend is not only getting married, but he’s getting married to a former friend of hers.  Her sole mission over the next five-and-a-half hours is to get to the engagement party, which happens to be on the other side of Los Angeles.

It would seem easy enough for most of us.  The only problem is that her car is still being fixed.  She’s also $35 overdrawn and 48 hours from being evicted from her friend’s couch.  Thus, she has to find some friend or acquaintance that could help her.  She’ll even accept help from a total stranger.  (Apparently, taking the bus is beneath her.)

Izzy is not a particularly sympathetic character.  I get the whole wanting her boyfriend back, but it’s hard to imagine that crashing an engagement party would work.  I mean, he asked someone else to marry her.  That someone ended up being a former friend of Izzy’s and neither of them thought to involve Izzy.  That should tell her something.

For most of the movie, she wears the uniform for a catering job she lost because she got into a physical fight…with her boss.  She was in a band with her sister, but the sister moved on and seems to have a respectable life.  Someone even tells her that she could have had a solo career; she’s that good.  It’s just that she didn’t seem to get over her sister leaving.  Izzy is the only one that seems to have not moved on.

It’s very easy to think that Izzy got what she deserved.  She was given a good job, which she should have held on to.  She probably could have found someone new and gotten on with her life.  (Actually, that guy from the start of the movie would have been a pretty good candidate.)  The big question is what she hopes to accomplish once she gets across town.

Despite any misgivings about the movie, it ended up being halfway decent.  Many of the scenes were at least interesting.  Izzy does meet a few helpful people.  She also learns a thing or two about those she already knows, including one she calls Dick.  (I’m assuming it’s short for Richard, although I‘m not certain.)

I still feel like the movie could have done more.  Many of the people that Izzy meets are one-off characters.  They get three or four minutes of screen time before the adventure continues.  I suppose that’s the nature of having to keep moving.  You don’t get to stick around long enough to get to know people.

I am glad I stuck through it.  I find myself wondering about the ending.  Don’t worry.  I’m not going to give it away.  Part of the fun of this movie is wondering exactly what happened.  I do have a theory.  Either way, I think Izzy got exactly what she wanted, even if it’s not necessarily what she deserved.


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