Run (2020)
Directed by Aneesh Chaganty
Chloe, a teenager who is confined to a wheelchair, is homeschooled by her mother, Diane. Chloe soon becomes suspicious of her mother and begins to suspect that she may be harboring a dark secret.
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15 films that influenced Run
What critics say influenced Run
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Director Aneesh Chaganty nurtures some good Baby Jane / Misery / Carrie / Mommie Dearest vibes here.
And “Run” is really interested in something more akin to a hunter and captive movie—the movie so foreign to anything resembling sincere emotion, one wonders why they bothered to write a mother/daughter story and not just leave it like the “Misery”-esque story it resembles.
Run may make you recall a couple of famous films and actors, notably Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock’s Rear Window and James Caan in Misery .
Cue the over-the-top orchestral score and the nods to “Misery”!
In a way it reminded me of another two-hander, Misery, in which Kathy Bates won an Oscar for keeping the innocent James Caan trapped and terrified.
Reminiscent of the 1990’s movie adaptation of Stephen King‘s Misery , Run shows where unequivocal devotion can turn into a deadly web of secrets and unchecked boundaries.
Clearly inspired by the millennium-defining Munchausen by proxy case of all — that of Gypsy Rose Blanchard — “Run” has more in common with “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” than Hitchcock, operating at the clip of a runaway train.
Run brings to mind another horror-thriller about a character in a wheelchair held captive: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
How far things have come since “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” and the cliché of the helpless invalid at the mercy of her caregiver!
That leads to an absolutely batshit crescendo worthy of the legacy of films that Run piggy backs on from What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? and the other Hulu series The Act .
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Director Aneesh Chaganty nurtures some good Baby Jane / Misery / Carrie / Mommie Dearest vibes here.
Run may make you recall a couple of famous films and actors, notably Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock’s Rear Window and James Caan in Misery .
An added freshness is added to the role of Chloe in that Allen is a wheelchair user, marking the first time a wheelchair user has starred in a major thriller in more than 70 years (according to the press notes – though we think Christopher Reeve might have disputed that claim had the elastic word "major" not provided a get-out regarding the 1998 remake of Rear Window ).
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It nods to various influences, from “Night Must Fall” to “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?," and rolls on.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Director Aneesh Chaganty nurtures some good Baby Jane / Misery / Carrie / Mommie Dearest vibes here.
There are shades of "Carrie" here, in "Run's" depiction of a demented mother-daughter relationship, as well as "The Act," which centered on Munchausen syndrome by proxy, the clinical name for when a caregiver convinces their subject they have an illness they don't really have.
With shades of Stephen King (think Misery and Carrie, minus the telekinesis) bubbling just below its surface, Run is a taut and highly suspenseful thriller that often zigs when you’re expecting it to zag, resulting in an expertly crafted, nerve-shredding psychological thriller that may tread some familiar narrative territory, but manages to thwart any expectations you may have about what to expect.
Yet, as we go on, she takes more cues from Piper Laurie in Carrie .
An added freshness is added to the role of Chloe in that Allen is a wheelchair user, marking the first time a wheelchair user has starred in a major thriller in more than 70 years (according to the press notes – though we think Christopher Reeve might have disputed that claim had the elastic word "major" not provided a get-out regarding the 1998 remake of Rear Window ).
Run also feels a bit like the classic Gaslight , which starred Ingrid Bergman as a person manipulated into believing she is delusional.
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This topic being used in movies is far from new, as you might remember a similar story being told in The Sixth Sense (1999) involving Mischa Barton’s character.
This is a film in conversation with Hitchcock, and Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s Inside, that handily invalidates crusty old ideas about people with disabilities lacking agency.