Mobile Homes

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.

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.

I tried to like this movie, but so much of it is so contrived an unbelievable. The characters are not likeable, they make horrible life choices and seem intent on messing up anything in their life that may seem good or normal. I actually have known people in life who made horrible decisions and were in similar situations as the characters in this movie, they did things differently and for different reasons. But their horrible choice made a kind of sense, in this movie so much is nonsensical.

The ending is a disaster. I couldn't imagine a worse ending for this film. Sad and tragic should be the plotline, not the movie itself.

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.

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