Lou (2022)

Trailer available here

When I actually sat down to watch Lou it was on a bit of a whim. It had sat on my list for a while but I knew that it is the sort of thing that I would very quickly get into and end up fully focusing on or it would just end up in the background with me forgetting it was even there. Luckily, it turned out to be the first.

It shows two relatively isolated, keeping themselves to themselves, women coming together to trace down a young child that seems to have been kidnapped by a familiar source. When Hannah (Jurnee Smollett), who seems to be a struggling single mother, has to go outside to try and fix the power in the storm she makes an odd discovery and returns inside to find her child Vee missing. Whilst it is clear from the opening few scenes she doesn’t have the greatest relationship with her landlord and neighbor Lou (Allison Janney) she doesn’t know what else to do and dashes right over there and they start to venture through the woods and beyond to find the child (all with Lou’s hunting dog by their side).

But this quickly becomes more than a simple “find the lost child” tale. It has humour, some of it dark, it has emotional turmoil, it has layer after layer of secrets, moments of panic and more; A true was of so many emotions and plot twists that all come together seamlessly. The pacing of it is fantastically timed, everything feels well explained without it being too overthought and it is short enough to keep it going with enough action and energy without it becoming an overwhelming sprint (which can be easily done in ‘race against the clock’ sort of productions).

It would also be an absolute disservice to not mention just how fantastic the acting itself here is. Smollett and Janney are a perfect pairing for how they interact with each other and whilst others like Greyston Holt (playing Chris) might not get a huge amount of actual screen time every moment that they do their interactions and intensity match up to their roles perfectly. It is a flow of seamless star quality without being filled with a bunch of enlarged ego actors that try too hard. And honestly, that’s a refreshing thing to see sometimes.

If somebody happened to say they wanted to watch this, I would not be opposed to sitting down and watching it again with them. And for me, that’s a pretty rare thing.