As "Holler" (2020 release; 90 min.) opens, a teenage girl is running away with two large bags of empty cans. We soon learn that she is Ruth, a high school student in rural southeastern Ohio. She and her brother Blaze are barely getting by, delivering scrap metal to the local scrap yard. Their mom is serving time in the Jackson County jail on unspecified drug charges. On top of all that, the house where Ruth and Blaze are staying at has no running water and several eviction notices... At this point we are 10 min. Into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this is the feature-length debut of writer-producer-director Nicole Riegel, adapting her 2016 short film of the same name into a feature length. The story is as familiar as it is depressing: working class people in the Midwest who are barely getting by and are literally hanging on by a thread, both economically, socially and emotionally. The difference with this film, as opposed to, say the god-awful 2020 film adaptation of "Hillbilly Elegy", is that you pretty quickly are invested in these characters, in particular Ruth and Blaze, fighting astronomical odds to make it through. A movie like this wouldn't be complete without a Trump reference, and he appears in several TV clips, talking about how he, and only he, can turn this around. Except of course that once in office, he didn't lift a finger for people like the Ruth and Blaze characters and absolutely nothing changed during his term in office. Politics aside, this movie is indeed riveting and depressing at the same time. The no-name cast performs admirably, in particular British actress Jessica Barden in the lead role of Ruth. We surely have not seen the last of her.
"Holler" was supposed to premiere at the 2020 SXSW festival, yes almost a year and a half ago. But then a little thing called COVID-19 changed the world. The movie finally received a low-profile select theater release this past weekend. The Sunday early evening screening where I saw this at in my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, was attended poorly: exactly 3 people, including myself. To be honest, I cannot see this playing much longer in theaters. For that the movie is too bleak and too depressing, if riveting. If you have any interest in watching a tough movie about hoe people deal with economic depression, I'd readily suggest you check it out, be it in a theater (if you still can), on Amazon Instant Video or another streaming service, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.
