TO LESLIE: The Humanity In Addiction

It’s that time of year again. As we enter the business end of the film season, we are greeted with a host of Very Serious Dramas all gearing up for potential Oscar nominations. These typically feature either Important Message period pieces or Social Commentary hardscrabble dramas, usually played out in grim surroundings. To Leslie is the latter, and while it might sometimes feel just a little too cliché, and perhaps a little too cloying towards its dénouement, it is redeemed by the powerful performance of Andrea Riseborough. It’s hard to see it coming out on top during Oscar season – as it clearly seems to be aiming for – but it is a good effort and serves as an effective vehicle for showcasing Riseborough‘s considerable talent.

Leslie (Riseborough) is a West Texan single mother struggling with alcoholism. Some years ago she won the lottery, granting her just shy of $200,000 and the promise of “a better life” as she gleefully tells the reporter who interviews her after her win. As the opening sequence establishes, however, that money was far from life-changing. Now broke, having drunk the majority of that lottery money away, and stumbling from one dive bar to the next, Leslie is plummeting towards rock bottom. When her landlord locks her out of her apartment after one too many unpaid bills, Leslie is forced to return to the society she shunned in order to survive.

Leslie’s Journey

What plays out next is episodic in nature. Leslie pinballs from place to place, as she quickly burns through any good will she might have had left from friends and family. First she lodges with her son James (an excellent Owen Teague, whose star is surely rising now) but wears out her welcome after stealing money from his roommate to buy booze. Then she flops over to old friends Dutch and Nancy (Stephen Root and Allison Janney respectively), who clearly have had enough of her shit already and are just waiting for an excuse to throw her out. When that excuse does come, she finds herself on the streets scavenging for whatever she can find and squatting in an abandoned ice cream parlour. It’s here that she crosses paths with Sweeney (Marc Maron), a motel manager who takes pity on her and offers her a job cleaning in exchange for a small wage and room and board. Leslie has one last chance to turn her life around, and she grows closer to the lonely, downtrodden Sweeney, she just might find a reason to keep going.

There’s nothing in To Leslie you won’t have seen before. Any number of working-class, Middle America poverty dramas have done this before. It sometimes feels like a paint-by-numbers: there’s the fall from grace; here’s the rock bottom moment; here’s the monologue in which the main character realises they need to get their shit together; there’s the saviour who takes pity on the hapless hero and gives them a platform for them to rise again. The beats are all present and accounted for.

But To Leslie does something just a little bit different: there’s no sugar-coating here. Leslie is a mess, yes, but so is the world around her. Dutch and Nancy are genuinely angry, bitter people, drained of all empathy, creating a hostile environment in which Leslie could have no hope of recovery. James’ friends, far from trying to help his mom, actually enable her behaviour. Any number of morally bankrupt men approach Leslie in bars, spotting easy prey, and attempt to pick her up with toe-curling lines like “me, in one hour” when she asks them what they see in her.

There’s no fairy tale world here, no insightful small-town American values on display. Everyone is out for themselves and whenever Leslie falters, rather than rush to her aid, the majority seem to watch with relish as she spirals. Rather than a straightforward redemption arc, Leslie has to rise and fall on a number of occasions before things start to go even slightly her way. This feels far more realistic than previous efforts in the genre.

Andrea’s Masterclass

Central to the realism of To Leslie, is the eponymous character herself. There’s a complete lack of vanity in the way Riseborough approaches the character, and director Michael Morris does not hold back in showing just how cruel and rapacious Leslie can be, but he also clearly has deep empathy for her. He shoots her through the grit and grain of the Texan skyline, thrusting her into the bowels of the society she lives in – through motels and laundromats, dive bars and railroad tracks – but throughout he is determined to hold on to her humanity. His searching camera always finds the small moments where Leslie feels human again, and it’s enough to keep us hooked.

This is where Riseborough shines. Leslie is a broken woman in the deep, dark grips of an addiction that has rendered her almost entirely devoid of compassion, for herself or anyone else. She wants to be a better person, and desperately yearns for love, for acceptance. The small moments where she thinks she’s just about to get it only to be disappointed again are handled with such quiet devastation by Riseborough that it catches your breath. Scenes showing Leslie dancing on her own, lost entirely in her own world, her emotions rapidly swinging between the unhinged joy of ephemeral drunkenness and the crushing realisation that she’s once again lost control of her life, are heart-breaking. Riseborough also captures that hard-to-mimic act an alcoholic does when they are desperately trying to pretend they are sober when everyone around them can see the opposite is true. In these moments you feel genuine empathy and compassion for Leslie, willing her to break through this and find her redemption.

The Supporting Cast

The cast around Riseborough is solid and dependable. Teague plays the demoralised son to perfection: James wants the best for his mom and is constantly battling between hope and fear when Hurricane Leslie starts to gather pace. There is a moment where he discovers plastic bottles of vodka hidden underneath Leslie’s mattress and all his pent up frustration with his mom bubbles violently to the surface, to the extent that he runs out into the hallway and attacks his friend for harbouring her when she was drunk. It’s brutal and Teague sells the anger and frustration so well.

Elsewhere Allison Janney gives a trademark performance as an embittered ex-friend who’s got enough problems of her own without Leslie’s to add. It’s the sort of thing Janney has done a hundred times before, and she never does less than knock it out of the park. Stephen Root, too, is old hand at this now. Although he gets very little to do as the disgruntled biker Dutch, his anger is always palpable and that’s enough.

Maron plays Sweeney with the kind of tough core and internal softness that’s becoming his wheelhouse now. A little like Sam Silvia from GLOW, Easy‘s Jacob Malco, and the version of himself he played on his own show Maron, Sweeney is kind-hearted and a little beaten down by life. He sees something in Leslie he feels is worth saving, and so puts up with the abuse, the lax attitude to work, and the deep self-loathing she has. He’s entirely believable and while it feels a little contrived that he should offer Leslie a job cleaning a motel when it’s fairly obvious she isn’t up to the task, you suspend your disbelief because Maron sells Sweeney so well as a lovelorn loner.

Conclusion:

It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but To Leslie is a good addition to that Social Commentary genre of Oscar-bait movies that are dutifully trotted out this time of year. Anchored by an incredible performance from Riseborough, and supported by a phenomenal cast of hall-of-fame acting talent, you’re always in good hands here. Michael Morris directs with the confidence of someone who knows the talent here will keep you watching, and is brave enough to take a few left turns when you’re sure he’ll go right. It all adds up to a tangible insight into addiction in Middle America, and how easy it is to fall through the cracks.

Andrea Riseborough delivers an acting masterclass as Leslie, but it’s far from her first. What’s your favourite performance from her, and why? Let us know in the comments!

To Leslie will be in theatres and On Demand on October 7, 2022!

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