Run

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

 They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had,

 And add some extra, just for you.

Philip Larkin - 1971. The first verse of his famous poem This Be The Verse. He knew what time it was.

It's great when a film has a lead as strong as Sarah Paulson but it can be a burden too, especially when that lead is best known for their work in the horror genre. For years she's been great in the American Horror Story series and this year she rocked it in Ratched so when she turns up in Run you're on the offensive straight away. There's no way she's going to be playing a straight laced character and it's a not a spoiler to say you won't be waiting long to find about about her in Run. Streaming on Hulu now it's yet another film kicked onto streaming platforms by this chaotic year but this time it's really worth your while. BTW, it was supposed to be released in cinemas on Mother's Day. Chortle.

Diane (Sarah Paulson) and Chloe (Kiera Allen) are a mother and daughter living in the countryside in Washington State. They live for each other. Chloe was born prematurely and suffers from numerous ailments ( asthma, diabetes, heart arrhythmia, haemochromatosis, paralysis and others) because of it and Diane has devoted her life to caring for and homeschooling her wheelchair bound daughter. Their days go by in a blur of learning, physiotherapy and medication. The relationship is built on love and trust and both have their emotional needs fulfilled by the other. All is as well as it can be until the day Chloe looks into a bag of groceries and sees something that rocks her to her very core.

There's a real bang of 90's psychodrama off Run. You could imagine it being released in 1992 with Anna Chlumsky playing Chloe and Melanie Griffith as Diane. In fact, save for a mention of an iphone and a tense google search if could be set in the 90's and fitted in nicely on the shelves of Xtravision alongside Jennifer 8, Pacific Heights and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. But it's Run's unwillingness to embrace the melodrama and excess that those films reveled in during it's climax that makes it stand out. Instead it's power comes from two super central performances. Performances at first built on love and trust and then fear and need while staying intertwined until the bitter end.

Add to that a couple of expertly crafted sequences that lay on the tension to an unbearable level and you have a watch that comes from nowhere to slap you across the mush. It's a film that might seem far fetched to some but there's a real life precedent there and in fact this film plays out it's story in a far more understated fashion thankfully. Truth being stranger than fiction and all that jazz. This one is a story that needs no silly embellishments to work.

Run is streaming online now. It's very good.