- Starring
- Mallory Everton, Whitney Call, Julia Jolley
- Writers
- Whitney Call, Mallory Everton
- Directors
- Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek
- Rating
- n/a
- Running Time
- 80 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s SXSW Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
Most of the world is still suffering from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic so it’s only inevitable that it would appear in film and television at some point and that point has now come, like it or not. While some audiences are likely to find a sense of synergy with Recovery, the latest pandemic-inspired film, others are just as likely to not feel that way about this comedy that somehow already feels dated. Merely using this setting as window dressing for its mediocre and cringe-worthy humor, this film is sure to irritate more than entertain. Fortunately or not, at least it’s a short one, clocking in at 80 minutes and considering the circumstances, it still pulls off a competent product. In the end, the film succeeds or fails based on the film’s two stars as the film follows a pair of clueless sisters named Blake (Everton) and Jamie (Call) who embark on a roadtrip to pickup their grandmother (Anne Sward Hansen) from her retirement home following a COVID outbreak.
Now it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that hijinks would indeed ensure over the course of Blake and Jamie’s roadtrip because it wouldn’t be much of a film otherwise. Meanwhile, Recovery hits all the pandemic tropes for humor but it just gets old very fast. Perhaps dictated by the circumstances, the majority of the film is Blake and Jamie in a car which does get repetitive but the film tries to break that up with subplots and by taking them out of the car in certain situations. However, it was just hard to care for any of it, not just because the film wasn’t funny, but also that Blake and Jamie are irritating characters. As far as most will be concerned, it ends there.
At the end of the day, maybe we’re just not ready for a film like Recovery but nevertheless, here it is and it will nonetheless still find an audience.
still courtesy of SXSW
If you liked this, please read our other reviews here and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Instagram or like us on Facebook.
The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
