Running on Empty (1988)

Premise: In 1971, Annie (Christine Lahti) and Artie (Judd Hirsch) blew up a naplam lab, blinding and paralyzing one man. They've been on the run ever since. In what should be his last year of high school, their eldest son, Danny (River Phoenix), wants a future of his own choosing, but he knows that would mean giving up his family forever.

Of course, there's a girl involved. And, because this movie came out when it did, it's Martha Plimpton. She's a believable actress, but she has a funny voice and looks kind of like a frog. Suffice it to say that I've always wondered what the big deal about Plimpton is.

Here's what makes this movie so great: it's heavy emotionally, but the full weight of it never really hits you until
the last minute. Somehow, Sidney Lumet's direction and Naomi Foner's screenplay draws out the tension so that the inevitable and impossible conclusion remains just that - a conclusion. Not an idea you figure out in the opening frames or half way through the movie. Not because the movie keeps you guessing with twists but because you get caught up in the character's motivations. It's a small scale character study/coming of age story that's one of the best I've ever seen.

And if you've been reading long enough, you know I'm a sucker for a good coming of age story.

I'm struggling with what to say about the performers and their performances. Hirsch and Lahti bring such depth of grief to their roles that you cannot fault their actions even if you don't support them. Hirsch's father struggles with teaching his kids subterfuge at every turn and still giving them something to believe in, while Lahti's mother functions as an interpreter, creating a peace with her newly rebellious son and his idealist father.

Phoenix functions as the film's moral centre, a kid stretched too thin holding his family together and too loosely hanging on to the one dream that could sustain him. Their lives deprive of him of any kind of future, and he desperately believes that he cannot go against them. It's the kind of thing that adults go through when their parents cannot care for themselves anymore, but he takes on the burden at too young an age with quiet grace.

Plus, they use Fire and Rain a lot. I like that song. A-