Mobile Homes

This is a very well crafted film with compelling performances all the way around. Imogen is once again outstanding.

We see a single mother, her 8 year old son and her criminal boyfriend in a random and aimless series of scams and hustles. The mother found her way here by a series of terrible life choices that are just beginning to have dire consequences for her son who has reached the age for first grade. Her relationship with her boyfriend is simply toxic. He has started to involve the child in his criminal endeavors.

The film begs the question, can she turn her and her son's lives around when presented with a good opportunity? Its easy to judge these characters harshly, especially the mother. If that's all one gets from this then one is missing a lot.

Ali (Imogen Poots) and her son Bone live with her volatile boyfriend Evan drifting from place to place as they perform petty scams for money. They get into cock fighting and barely escape a police raid. She manages to run away from Evan with her son and hide in an empty mobile home.

The first part with the boyfriend is so muddled that it becomes flat. The narrative drive isn't there. It's in a faux docu-style filming until it gets to Callum Keith Rennie. It feels like the acting and the story is allowed to be unleashed at that point. The story still meanders around but without Evan, it is allowed room to breathe. This is not a movie with a destination. Of course, there is the inevitable reunion because the story has nowhere else to go. It's not that compelling to watch the destructive relationship between maddening Evan and the co-dependent Ali.

Immogen Poots is a decent actress and a beautiful girl but here she has a character that jst isn't very likable.

The story itself is a cautionary tale but too bad no one is listening because it has been played before and and is a common one in real life. I have seen it play out in front of my eyes but when I saw it the SOB, worthless, abusive boyfriend was the 40 something year old guy with his own family business and the person that tried to help was the broke one with nothing. At least in that case the girl had an ex-husband that could take the kid.

I give it a six because the acting was not bad but the end was rdiculous and the main character herself is just not very likable at all. It's hard to watch a movie where you just want to scream, "You're a ridiculous human," the whole time unless you are watching "The View" which is unwatchable anyway.

Can someone actually change their life? That is the question Director/Writer Vladimir de Fontenay (primarily a Short's director) poses in this gritty yet heart-wrenching look at wayward mother (Imogen Poots "That Awarkard Moment" 2014), her abusive and demanding boyfriend Evan (Callum Turner "The Only Boy Living in New York" 2017) - a role originally slated for Anton Yelchin before his death, her young impressionable son ( new comer Frank Oulton) and mobile home builder/seller Robert (Callum Keith Rennie "Californication "). What de Fontenay and cinematographer Benoit Soler do right here is place the audience directly in the seat of the actors, enable us to live their chaotic lifestyle and experience their cold Canada environment. Along with de Fontenay's terrific realistic direction, across the board the actors make the audience despise who they are and what they are doing, yet equally make the viewer wish them better life choices. Young Outlon and Keith Rennie stand out here because they are so contradictory to what the stories premise. Thus, they keep the audience glued to the screen and their characters. "Mobile Homes" is an indie film that probably won't make it to the big screen. However, you should find it in other formats. This film was screened at the Palm Springs International Film Festival #PSIFF2018

Imogen Poots plays a young , poor, submissive mother who gets influenced by her selfish and abusive boyfriend. He uses her and her son to make a buck regardless of morals. If you don't get this low dialog film it may be that you have not lived or seen people living on the lower edge of society. It's gritty & the relationships are edgey & raw. A good watch.