RIDE (Helen Hunt) Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
This story about overbearing mother Jackie (writer/director Helen Hunt), who follows her son (Malificent’s Brenton Thwaites) to L.A. when he drops out of Columbia, loses its way after about the first third of the picture. Jackie just seems annoying and out of control.
Gradually, though, we’re drawn back into the narrative when it becomes clear that her backstory might explain her behaviour and, also promising, it looks like her surfing instructor dude (Luke Wilson) might get her out of her rut.
Hunt is excellent as the high-powered editor who can’t let go of her son, and she writes strong dialogue. (Diehard New Yorker Jackie’s trashing of Los Angeles’s barren cultural landscape is very funny.) And she does a good job with her secondary characters: a beachcombing drug dealer passing himself off as a writer Jackie’s driver, Ramon, played with exquisite forbearance by David Zayas.
The wonky narrative is definitely a problem – Hunt takes too long to get us to sympathize with the obsessed Jackie – but by then, we really want her to catch that wave. 118 minutes.
