Director: Michael Morris | Writer: Ryan Binaco
Stars: Andrea Riseborough, Marc Maron, Allison Janney, and Stephen Root
I’m back! Due to a whirlwind last quarter of 2022 at work, I didn’t have time to write about the films that I’d been seeing but it’s great to finally scratch that itch with a film that I haven’t been able to shake since watching it back in mid-December. For some reason or another, one film every year slides under the general public’s radar and falls quietly into my Top-10, without much year-end fanfare. In 2021, those were Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero and Fran Kranz’s Mass, and for 2022 it’s Michael Morris’s To Leslie.
It tells the intimate story of a single mother from Texas who wins $190,000 in a lottery but burns through it all, ending up out of work, out of friends, and in a constant drunken haze. The film picks up in the aftermath of burned bridges and severed relationships as Leslie continues to abuse the kindness and forgiveness of others to support her alcohol abuse. What follows is a simple yet beautifully told story of not only flawed people but also of empathy and how much one will endure to show it.
Andrea Riseborough (Possessor, Mandy, and Birdman) plays Leslie and gives a performance that’s deservingly mentioned right up there with the best of 2022. She had already garnered several nominations for the role including one from the Independent Spirit Awards before she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress while I was working on this. Watching her effortlessly weave through the range of emotions that the role demands with realistic changes in posture, facial expression, and vocal intonation, it’s easy to see why. Not to be outdone, Marc Maron brings his own strong personality to the screen playing the empathetic hotel manager. As a long-time listener of his podcast WTF with Marc Maron, it was great to see this side of him brought to life in the character of Sweeney and I hope he gets the recognition for such a raw performance. Rounding out the cast with terrific supporting roles are Allison Janney & Stephen Root as Leslie’s last-chance family members, Owen Teague as her only son, and the underused Andre Royo as Sweeney’s hotel partner.
Of course, actors can only take their characters so far and that’s where Ryan Binaco’s heartfelt script comes in. Written as a tribute to his late mother, Binaco handles even the smallest of characters with so much love and care that not a single exchange between them is wasted. In fact, it’s the supporting characters in the film who get the meatiest lines, all doing their part to steer Leslie toward or away from her redemption. Time and again I found myself nodding in concurrence as Maron’s Sweeny dropped life lessons about being a flawed human throughout the movie. To Leslie is just the second script of Binaco’s that has been brought to the screen, so I’m looking forward to more projects from him and hope he continues to write such strong characters as these.
In his feature directorial debut, Michael Morris used his substantial experience in the TV world (House of Cards, Halt and Catch Fire, Shameless, and Better Call Saul) and let Binaco’s script and the endless talent of his actors tell the story. Cutting his teeth on such beautifully written shows with large casts allowed Morris to convey just how important even the smallest roles, and their parts in the larger character web, are to the story. Along with his cinematographer Larkin Seiple (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Morris showed a knack for invoking the feeling that Leslie’s world is caving in around her. With perfectly timed close-ups and also knowing when to hold back, the audience sees it’s the people she’s interacting with who are closing in on her. It’s a subtly shot film and all the better for it.
The honky tonk and country blues tunes, arranged by iconic singer/songwriter Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes, are a huge benefit to the film as well. Perry fills the smokey interiors of the watering holes that Leslie frequents with Texas-toned authenticity and charges the audience’s soul with long sustained keystrokes in perfect timing with onscreen character vulnerability. Perry’s flexibility here is an impressive feat of diverse songwriting that wannabe musicians like yours truly can only hope to accomplish.
Marc Maron has stated that he believes the film’s distributor, Momentum Pictures, dropped the ball in getting this film to a wider audience and it’s a shame. Despite the minuscule budget, the final product shows that everyone who had a hand in its creation poured their all into it. The small films like To Leslie are having the largest impact on me lately, and I don’t know if it’s just that I’m getting more sentimental as I begin my 40s or if films like this one are just that good. I’d like to think it’s a little bit of both.