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MICKEY AND THE BEAR
Director: Annabelle Attanasio Cast: Camila Morrone, James Badge Dale, Calvin Demba, Ben Rosenfield, Rebecca Henderson MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:28 Release Date: 11/13/19 (limited); 11/22/19 (wider); 11/29/19 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 12, 2019 Writer/director Annabelle Attanasio's feature debut is all about give and take: The daughter keeps giving, and the father keeps taking. Mickey and the Bear follows these two characters toward an inevitable breaking point that only arrives in the film's final moments. Up until then, we're never certain if Mickey (Camila Morrone) will escape the grasp of her father Hank (James Badge Dale), if she will continue to stay with him as he continues on the path of self-destruction, or even if either of them will get out of this situation alive. The tension here isn't in waiting for the ultimate fate of these characters. It's in the fact that we can understand and sympathize with both of them. No matter what happens, the result will be tragic in one form or another. The 18-year-old Mickey is a high school senior, seemingly resigned to life as it is. She's dating a guy (played by Ben Rosenfield) who's talking marriage and children, but like so much of Mickey's life at this point, it's pretty clear that the relationship is just another thing in which she's stuck (Mickey later finds some happiness with Wyatt, played by Calvin Demba, who can empathize with her situation). She's mostly stuck with Hank, a Marine veteran who was injured in Iraq and is now addicted to opioids. Hank spends his days sleeping, drinking, and waiting for Mickey to come home from school and work. The boyfriend takes the last of Hank's pain medication, and Mickey has to figure out a way to get more. Her father is bad enough now, she tells the clinic's head psychiatrist (played by Rebecca Henderson), but a Hank without his pills is another thing entirely. Attanasio's screenplay doesn't see Mickey as a victim, and it doesn't present Hank as a villain, either. Mickey sees this as her responsibility, considering that her mother has died, and Hank feels just as trapped in a life that seems absent of purpose or meaning as his daughter. The two lead performances carry this story, with Morrone playing a strong young woman, battling between her perceived duty and her desire to have a life, and Dale playing a man who refuses to address the pain that has come to define his life. They ensure that Mickey and the Bear cuts deep and to the core of a loving bond that has turned toxic. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for substance abuse, language throughout and some sexual material)
