Rock Bottom

Film: To Leslie
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

I don’t love going to the gym, but I go now six days a week. Part of the reason I go is because sitting at a desk for 20 years without exercise isn’t good for you. Part is because I inherited genetically high cholesterol from my mother and a blood clotting disorder from my dad (thanks, folks). On days I use the treadmill, I tend to watch television shows, but I’m not always in the mood. This is a long and roundabout way of saying that I watched a good percentage of To Leslie on my phone while walking uphill at four miles per hour.

You may or may not remember the controversy surrounding To Leslie at the Oscars earlier this year. The problem stems from the reason that I watched this film—the nomination of Andrea Riseborough for Best Actress. The controversy didn’t stem from the fact that the role and performance weren’t worthy (they were and are) but the fact that Riseborough had received no acclaim or notice in all of the awards leading up to the Oscars, and her nomination felt like a snub for others, especially Viola Davis in The Woman King.

To Leslie is a story about hitting rock bottom and bouncing on those rocks repeatedly. Our title character Leslie (Riseborough) had won close to $200,000 in a lottery, which is life-changing money for most of us but not “retire for the rest of our lives” money. Not really realizing this, the film begins with Leslie being kicked out of the motel she is living in because she is out of money. She’s drunk through all of the money, and as the film continues, we learn that she has also alienated her family and friends and essentially abandoned her son James (Drew Youngblood in flashback, Owen Teague in the present).

Much of the initial time we spend with Leslie is watching her continue to drop toward rock bottom, stealing from her son’s friend for alcohol money, and even drinking with his neighbors and avoiding him at all costs. Unable and unwilling to do anything but spiral, James calls family friends Dutch (Stephen Root) and Nancy (Allison Janney) to get her, but there’s bad blood between them, and Leslie is kicked out once again. She spends a night sleeping outside of a motel, and when she is scared away, she leaves her suitcase, which contains her only belongings.

That motel, though, is where we are going to spend most of the rest of the film. It is owned by Royal (Andre Royo), but essentially run by Sweeney (Marc Maron). Seeing something pitiable in Leslie, Sweeney eventually offers her a job cleaning up at the motel despite Royal’s warnings that nothing good comes from Leslie, who struggles to adjust to the job, to deadlines, and to not spending all of her nights drinking and looking for people to buy her drinks.

The third act can really only go one of two ways. Either Leslie is going to bounce so hard on the rocks that she’s going to shatter and we’re going to watch that final spiral into nothingness or she’s going to stop bouncing and do her best to climb out of the hole of her own creation. I’m not going to spoil that.

Andrea Riseborough is the main reason to watch this, and controversy or no, this is one hell of a performance. Legitimately, it brings up the question of what the problem truly was. Is it that Riseborough was nominated for an Oscar while being ignored everywhere else or the fact that she was ignored everywhere else? This is truly great work on her part, the sort of role that makes a career in the business if she didn’t already have one. It’s not a star-making vehicle that makes her a household name, but a career-making one that makes everyone in the industry stand up and notice who she is. It’s like Bronson was for Tom Hardy or Winter’s Bone for Jennifer Lawrence.

It's also worth mentioning Marc Maron. Maron is best known as a comedian, and he’s been pretty successful as a standup for a long time, and has also been extremely successful as a podcaster. His work in this is further evidence of just how smart it is to hire comedians to work in serious movies. Comedy is harder than drama as comic actors demonstrate time and time again. It’s fair to suggest that Maron was a bit snubbed come award season as well.

This is worth watching. It’s managed to get some bad press because of the nomination, but for my money, Riseborough deserved to be here more than a lot of others did.

Why to watch To Leslie: For all the controversy, it’s some of Andrea Riseborough’s best work.
Why not to watch: Watching other people spiral isn’t fun.