Run & Jump

What would happen if you’re life of happiness and family was all of a sudden ripped away from you, but left you knee deep in reminders?  What if a life altering situation happened to the person you loved most that would forever rewrite your future and your present, leaving you haunted and longing for the past?  This is the scenario that is presented in the Irish drama/comedy Run & Jump, although it lies more on the side of drama than on comedy.

The story is about wife and mother Vanetia (Maxine Peake) whose husband, Conor (Edward MacLiam) suffers a stroke which has caused brain damage, turning him into only a ghostly shade of what Vanetia once knew.  An American doctor, Ted (Will Forte) follows Conor home from the hospital and stays with the family, studying Conor to gain a medical understanding of his condition.  While Vanetia and family suffer through the integration stages of existing with a faint and distant husband and father, Ted is an outsider.  His scientific task keeps him emotionally detached to an almost cruel nature as he is in their abode, treating the cause of their emotional upheaval as a specimen to be examined.

The centrepiece of this movie is indeed the character of Vanetia, a woman with a steadfast love and determination, but also a fractured part of herself that seeps out from time to time.  I never like using cliche phrases like ‘tour de force’ when describing a performance, but I would be doing a disservice to Maxine Peake if I described it in any lesser fashion.  She carries with her the full embodiment of Vanetia and is able to pull the audience in full emersion into her life and circumstances.

While she is dedicated to her husband, a friendship develops with the good doctor and presents to her a painful temptation of having a life like she once had, one with joy and optimism.  As her husband becomes more alien to her children and herself, the remaining link that she has to her true humanity is through Ted, and he becomes a comforting escape from the dismal prospects that she is submersed in.

This is where first time feature film director Steph Green shows her greatest talent in the film.  She uses colours and shades to an immaculate level in giving visual representation to the two conflicting lives and men that Vanetia has.  There are muted colours and dreary tones in scenes around her frustrations and challenges with her husband, imprisoning scenes that offer little hope or passion.  Contrasting that is the vivid, bright colours of life that accompany her moments of happiness, hope, and as well as her relationship with Ted.  The colour of her red hair is magnified to brilliance, showing the full intensity of the marvellous character of Vanetia.

The movie flows for the most part with grace and a steady, knowing hand.  There are many different aspects drawn out into the open of this emotionally drained family, who are mercifully allowed times of embracing love.  The only moments when the flow is disrupted is when it ventures into the scenes of breakdown with Conor, with most of it appearing out of the blue and disrupting the film’s pace.

The movie is about life’s contemplations that come when we are conflicted between what we want, what we feel duty-bound to, and what we need.  As Vanetia is able to reconcile the two men in her life who torment her with different futures and possibilities, there is a marvellous scene where everyone is travelling along the Irish country side together.  The hills roll past, the vivid green is amplified and contrasted by almost colourless and blurry tops, a shot which represents the coming to terms Vanetia has arrived at.  If anything, do not see this film for any reason I have written about.  See it purely for the performance of Maxine Peake, who creates a character full of life on the edge of a dismal darkness, a crossroads that many of us have stood upon at one point or another.

Rating - 3 out of 4 stars