RECOVERY
(directors: Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek; screenwriter: Mallory Everton/Whitney Call; cinematographer: Brenna Empey; editor: Stephen Meek/Mallory Everton; music: ; cast: Whitney Call (Jamie Jerikovic), Mallory Everton (Blake), Julia Jolley (Erin), Stephen Meek (Evan-Gorb), Julia Jolley (Erin), Anne Sward Hansen (Nana), Dora McDonald (Dora); Runtime: 80; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Stephen Meek/Babetta Kelly/Abi Nielson/Scott Christopherson; Buzzfeed Studios; 2021)
“A silly but funny character-driven/road trip comedy on the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A silly but funny character-driven/road trip comedy on the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s co-directed with a good sense of humor by first-time feature directors Stephen Meek and Mallory Everton.
The low-budget film follows a pair of clueless sisters named Blake (Mallory Everton, co-director) and Jamie (Whitney Call), who take a road trip East to pick up their grandmother (Anne Sward Hansen) from her retirement home following a COVID outbreak. The ladies, in real-life, are two BYU grads who were on the Mormon college’s sketch comedy show, “Studio C”.
The ditsy sisters, the pink-haired 30-year-old elementary school teacher Jamie and her blonde sister Blake, discuss their plans for the next year, like visiting Rome or Disneyland. But in March of that year the pandemic hits and new plans are made, as they embark on an emergency cross-country road trip to save their grandma from her stay in a nursing home experiencing a COVID outbreak. The sisters want to reach granny before their irresponsible older sister Erin (Julia Jolley), on a cruise ship, reaches her first.
On their journey, the sisters engage in breezy car talk, like Jamie wondering about the care the mouse her elementary school class keeps as a pet is getting and Blake talks about her Tinder date and their long make-out session.
The pic reaches its destination because Call and Everton work well together, they feed off one another and the comedy (a balancing act between the absurd and reality) is easily worked into the script.
REVIEWED ON 4/4/2021 GRADE: B