Furlough

Greetings fellow screen peepers! Oscar winner Melissa Leo's film resume is loaded with dramatic roles, but in Furlough we get to see a lighter side of her. In Furlough, she plays Joan Anderson, a prison inmate serving her sentence when she is granted a weekend furlough in order to visit her dying mother. A rookie correction officer played by Tessa Thompson (Annihilation, Creed & Thor: Ragnarok) is assigned to chaperone her but she also has some baggage of her own in the form of a needy mother played by Whoopie Goldberg. The tone of the film is kept light during the first half of the film, but the film takes a more dramatic turn once Leo meets her mother. Leo is more than capable of the tone shift and she shines. Anna Paquin has a solid supporting role towards the end of the film that rounds out the cast. This is a nice feelgood road trip style film

The cast is good and the film is technically well made, but it lacks any kind of - well - interest.

It just meandres on with a few things happening - then it is the end of the film - that is it.

The story had a great deal of potential that it fails to fulfill.

The movie is enjoyable to a certain level ,, but i kinda expected a comedy movie to be actually funny ,, i mean it was okay ,, heartwarming for some scenes but not funny ,,, i don't know ,, i think there was that one scene with the taser and that was it .

The idea and the plot are original and had some potentials but the screenplay was so dull and not interactive.. I liked that intense Tessa Thompson character but still didn't rise to the occasion, same goes for Melissa Leo.

I think i'm being a bit generous giving the movie a 4 stars review ,, just for the idea itself.

It's watchable and enjoyable enough if there's nothing on TV and you've trawled through all films to this. I think it could have been very good with roles reversed, and more antagonism by leading players at the start. It would work better with a hard as nails older southern white taking the pretty young black girl to her mother and old surroundings. Wouldn't be political, I hope, but far more interesting.

A young, struggling part-time correctional officer gets the chance to become full-time by escorting a prisoner to her mother's deathbed. She is obviously supposed to learn something from the experience of trying to chaperone an unruly but older prisoner. Instead of a script that might let them learn or bond, instead it's a series of scenes with them simply sitting together as they travel.

Unfortunately, it feels as if the plot gets elements added to it to make it difficult. Most of what occurs in the trip seems to happen for no good reason, except to create situations where the inmate can escape, at least temporarily? Why, for example, would they be forced to take a bus and then a train to the mother (but then quickly return via rental car)? Why does the phone of the officer constantly ring or receive texts? Why do romantic interests appear and disappear as if put on the screen like chess pieces?

In short, I wanted to like this movie but it seems a mess, and I kept wondering how much Whoopie Goldberg and Anna Paquin were paid for what must have been 2 days of shooting each (if that). The humour really doesn't work - painfully so. The script is dull at best, and the tone is sometimes too mournful for it's own good. If you are a fan of Orange is the New Black, any episode you've seen is better than this.