Run
Ratings: 4.1/5
Duration: 1hr 30 min
Language: English
Genre: Thriller, Horror, Mystery
Director: Aneesh Chaganty
Writer: Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian
Producer: Rhonda Baker, Colleen Mitchell, Sev Ohanian, Natalie Qasabian
Music: Torin Borrowdale
Cinematography: Hillary Fyffe Spera
Editing: Nick Johnson, Will Merrick
Art Direction: Gary Barringer, Bruce Cook
Release Date: 20 November 2020
Streaming On: Hulu
Star Cast: Sarah Paulson, Kiera Allen, Onalee Ames, Pat Healy, Carter Heintz, Sara Sohn, Clark Webster, Conan Hodgkinson, Erik Athavale, Bradley Sawatzky, Steve Pacaud, Derek James Trapp
Plot:
The main synopsis includes a teenage wheelchair user who is home-schooled starts suspecting over time that her obsessively over-protective single mother is hiding some sinister secrets that she can never tell to anyone.
Review:
Run is a follow up to Chaganty’s debut directorial feature Searching, which was released in 2018 via Sony.
Chloe (Kiera Allen), a teenager who is confined to a wheelchair, is home schooled by her mother, Diane (Sarah Paulson). However, her mother's strange behaviour does not go unnoticed and Chloe becomes suspicious of all that her mother does, suspecting her of something sinister. She decides to go on the run in her wheelchair in a desperate attempt to get away from her.
The film is dark, suspenseful, and has moments of emotional and physical terror and violence. Diane is a child abuser with Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another, formerly Munchausen syndrome by proxy, hides a tragic past. She entraps, forcefully drugs, and threatens to kill her daughter Chloe.
Chloe, through a series of confusions and concerns related to her daily suspicious drugs that Diane has started slipping her daughter something called ‘trigoxin’. It turns out to be a dog medication! Clearly inspired by the millennium-defining story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the film takes a bizarre turn, and there is no genuine ‘oh so sweet’ moments between the mother-daughter duo.
Kiera Allen, who plays Chloe, represents a genuine discovery - funny, charismatic and in many ways more relatable. Chaganty is actively expanding audiences’ ideas of how creative movie plots can get. He has taken advantage of the character’s disability and has offered creative solutions to the perceived limitations. The background score has helped peak the tensions and thrill in dramatic scenes.
Fans of Paulson will indulge into her all new level of versatility. Diane is far from lovable, and lacks any redemptive quality. In fact, her only endearment comes from pity of her own personal journey. Diane is malicious, and constantly shifting between motherly love to crocodile tears, channelling like a true chameleon. As much as one might want to empathize with the concept of a mother, who almost lost her precious child due to a premature birth once already, one takes a back seat seeing Paulson operating with dark intentions and evil manipulations hidden behind a kind face and pitiful eyes.
Run delivers sleek thrills, almost like a Hitchcock-inspired thriller. With a powerful performance from Sarah Paulson, the film promises that the audience will stay securely at the edge of their seats for the 90 minute descent into mad entertainment.
