SCRAP
(director/writer: Vivian Kerr; cinematographer: Markus Menzer; editor: Toby Yates; cast: Vivian Kerr (Beth Anderson), Lana Parrilla (Stacy), Anthony Rapp (Ben), Khleo Thomas (Marcus), Beth Dover (Esther), Julianna Layne (Birdy); Runtime: 105; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Rachel Stander, Vivian Kerr; A Season of Rain; 2022)
“Smoothly executed.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This is the first feature film for Vivian Kerr as writer-director, who also produces and stars in it. In 2018, it was written by Vivian Kerr as a short.
The scrappy film is a smoothly executed and well-acted low-budget drama. It plays out as a hurtful personal story about an attractive young middle-class L.A. woman named Beth (Vivian Kerr) and her unlikely fall into being homeless and living in her car.
Beth is a prideful and stubborn single mom who gets laid off from her corporation public relations job, and must adjust to no longer living a plush lifestyle. She lives out of her car but moves her 5-year-old daughter Birdy (Julianna Layne) into the luxury house of her estranged, married, successful novelist, older brother Ben (Anthony Rapp) and his barren wife Stacy (Lana Parrilla), who takes treatments for a fertility problem. Beth no longer can afford her own place, but does not tell Birdy or Ben about her dire situation.
Ben tries to give sis whatever she wants and becomes her enabler. Meanwhile Stacy smothers Birdy with motherly affection.
Beth’s lies catch up with her, as we wonder if she can ever get it together to become responsible for her actions.
It’s a small drama about the dark side of unemployment experienced by many ordinary families, and it tells how Beth’s family deals with it. The realistic film is making the rounds of the film festival circuit.
It played at the Fargo Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 7/9/2024 GRADE: B