Tropic Sprockets / Brittany Runs a Marathon

By Ian Brockway

Paul Downs Colaizzo delivers a warm crowd pleaser with “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” his directorial debut. The film is positive and affecting without feeling sugary or forced. It is an emotive story, light at its core and it doesn’t go for cheap laughs.

Brittany (Jillian Bell) is an overweight young woman whose health is in danger. She drinks to excess and the doctor tells her of fatty liver disease. She remains fatalistic.

Brittany joins her shallow roommate Gretchen (Alice Lee) for drinks at a club. She is treated dismissively and goes from bad to worse.

The next day after Skyping with her sister’s husband (Lil Rel Howery) and seeing her friends traveling and happy, Brittany resolves to jog around the block. She makes it but is a sweaty wreck.

Brittany has a brush with Catherine (Michaela Watkins) a judgmental neighbor who wants to be friends. Brittany wants no part of it. She sets her mind to running—alone.

Along her path in Central Park, Brittany does meet the kindly chattering Seth (Micah Stock) who quickly bonds with her self-deprecating humor.

The highlight of the film is Bell who is authentic and understated. We experience Brittany’s circumstance. She is patronized as an ordinary woman, but her wit gives her both charm and charge. She wants to better herself, but is blighted by social media and her belittling and vicious fair weather friend Gretchen.

Brittany carries on. Sadly, she is quick to cringe under an arched eyebrow or a snarky opinion. Humor is a weapon.

The film is also a fine character study. We see Brittany morose as a heavy person. Then as she begins to lose weight, we see her spirit lift and she begins to open herself to others. Weight can be a psychological barrier and all it takes is one uncomfortable party to bring the shadow of Brittany’s former self and her panicked facial expressions say all that is necessary.

Utkarsh Ambudkar (Blindspotting) is excellent as a self-centered, opinionated but amiable slacker who falls for Brittany. His oafish character Jern seems overly confident, but in reality his casualness is a survival mechanism with arrogance only a defense. Jern is a person of feeling and empathy.

At one point, Brittany moves back home to Philadelphia and there is a one second shot of the Rocky statue. More than anything “Brittany Runs a Marathon“ is an underdog story. The actual Brittany O’Neill (on whom this film is based) proved that you don’t have to be Rocky Balboa to re-create your physical self anew when she ran the New York City Marathon.

The drive is within.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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