Run comes to us through Aneesh Chaganty, who wrote and directed a movie I really liked in 2018 called Searching. I’ve been highly anticipating this movie ever since I heard of it, and it featured on a couple of top-ten lists from reviewer’s I listen to States-side, where Run came out in November. But taking a look at the poster, it seems Run was originally billed for release around Mother’s Day last year, before COVID took it out, and what an actual coincidence that I’m approaching this movie on Netflix with Mother’s Day just in our rear. There’s no way I could get my lovely mother to watch this suspenseful movie with me though – if it’s not a UK crime show, she’s barely interested these days – but that might be for the best, because I wouldn’t want her to get any frightening ideas.
Home-schooled and sheltered, wheelchair-bound teen Chloe Sherman (Kiera Allen) must follow a strict regimen of pills and procedures every day, due to restricting medical conditions. Even so, she is wildly precocious, and excited by the prospect of ‘leaving the nest’ to attend college next year, which would mark her first time away from her devoted mother Diane (Sarah Paulson), who takes excellent care of her. But an innocuous incident (as Chloe tries to sneak more chocolate) leads Chloe to question her daily medication, and maybe mother isn’t being entirely truthful about how sick Chloe really is. Finding answers is going to be tough if Diane can no longer be trusted.
Run is most exhilarating when watching Chloe piece together her own identity quickly unravelling from pulling one loose string. She is one of the best protagonists I’ve ever come across I reckon; truly, an instantly classic heroine in the horror/thriller realm anyway, put it that way. A movie like this, or Get Out, or Don’t Breathe (one of those horror movies with a title that tells you what to do), is really like a puzzle box, or escape room, where the movie sets its parameters – wheelchair, asthma, good at engineering, in this case – before a challenge to overcome a sinister obstacle or circumstance lies ahead. Who would’ve thought the most compelling scenes I might see this year would come from a disabled girl dealing with a locked door and a staircase? The movie just preys on how difficult the world would be for a paraplegic if the systems they rely on are taken away and reminds us what us able-bodied people take for granted. But not only that; because Chloe is a minor, her vulnerability is all the more palpable – she can’t get help from her local chemist without risking her mother finding out about it. She can’t call someone who will reverse-charges because her mother will find out about that too. Even at a point of rescue, her word against her mother’s still seems like a daunting task. And it’s through a really considered cause and effect, that I was invested in this movie and rooting for Chloe to figure it all out. Diane does not underestimate her daughter though – cutting the phoneline and disabling the stair lift, despite locking up the bedroom door pretty sturdily – and once it becomes clear to Diane that there’s no going back, her solution in the basement is gut-wrenching; honest to God, how has our crackpot Mummy kept it together so steadily for seventeen years? Maybe she hasn’t, but we never get that scene where Diane flies off the handle suddenly or gets fidgety, and her stunted daughter finds her erratic behaviour normal.
I’m a big fan of Run, although I was a little surprised by the ending and I’m leaning towards an alternative. I thought for sure Chloe was going to regain the use of her legs and kick Diane down the hospital stairs, probably crippling her as a consequence. It would’ve worked as a bittersweet victory for Chloe; besting her captor using abilities once withheld, but also personally taking away Diane’s mobility when she knows how debilitating that can be. Then when Chloe visits Diane in the hospital at the end it could further work ironically; after Chloe has been adamant Diane needs her, and Diane has insisted Chloe is going to need her more, now Chloe continues the façade caring sweetly for her ailing ‘mother’ despite the horrible things she’s done, ruffled with an unwavering responsibility for crippling this disturbed stranger… Happy Mother’s Day! I’m pitching a more classically unsettling ending, perhaps most akin to Midsommar in recent years if I could be so bold, where our main character gets what they want but doesn’t truly escape. But instead, it seems the movie wants to go with unadulterated revenge for an ending, reintroducing the dog pills as comeuppance. I guess if Diane ever finds a way to stop taking those meds and get back on her feet it opens it up to sequels, baby! – not that I’m suggesting for a second that Run needs a sequel. But with my ending I’m assuming a full restoration of Chloe’s leg functionality is possible, where the movie has Chloe only partially recover, and I don’t know the science behind taking a lifetime supply of dog pills. Actress Kiera Allen, who plays Chloe, uses a wheelchair in real life, and perhaps the ending was reworked with her casting in mind, because I was pretty convinced Chloe was getting ready to lay the boot in. Anyway, another smallish nitpick I have is that I don’t think we needed to see Diane go to the back of her car, spelling danger for the mailman (Pat Healy), when it was pretty obvious that Chloe wasn’t going to get to safety in that moment, despite how brave and friendly Mister Postman truly was.
Run is not a jump-scare affair, with its premise and pressing dilemma tense enough to remain investing. Obviously, when it comes to overbearing mother figures in movies, Carrie must be the most common thought that comes to mind, and I noticed when Diane and Chloe go to the cinema, the theatre is called the Carry – I’ve looked it up; Run is filmed in Winnipeg but I can’t find a picture to confirm if that theatre actually exists as the Carry! Somebody, leave a comment below if you’ve been there. Either way, I’m counting that as some serious referencing, man; I like it!
4.0
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