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Weekend Watch is here for you. Every Friday we’re going to recommend the best of what’s new to rent on VOD or stream for free. It’s your weekend; allow us to make it better.
What to Stream This Weekend
Movie: All We Had
Director: Katie Holmes
Starring: Katie Holmes, Stefania Owen, Richard Kind, Eve Lindley, Mark Consuelos, Luke Wilson, Siobahn Fallon, Judy Greer
Available on: Netflix
A movie like All We Had has to be appreciated around the edges and margins, not because what’s happening at the center is so bad, exactly, but because it’s so decidedly familiar. Based on a novel by Annie Weatherwax, All We Had tells the story of single mom Rita (Holmes) and her teenage daughter Ruthie (Owen), who kind of drift between towns and opportunities, trying to scrape two dimes together and stay one step ahead of total disaster. Their story is part road-trip, part coming-of-age memory play, part run-down slice of life. Every story beat will recall three other movies that did the same thing, most of the turns of plot feel telegraphed or overly convenient. This is the kind of movie that has Rita self-extracting an infected tooth in order to underline her desperate straits in the first act only to have her fall for a dentist in the third act.
Rita and Ruthie eventually happen upon a diner, and while Rita’s original intention is a dine-and-dash, their broken-down car thwarts that, and they end up putting down stakes there. We meet the diner owner (Kind) and his niece Pam (Lindley), a young trans woman who’s a waitress and ends up being a sweet friend to Ruthie. Rita gets a real-estate-agent boyfriend played with callow slickness by Mark Consuelos and that aforementioned dentist played by Luke Wilson. Rita’s love life is for sure the weak link to the film, and the movie perks up significantly when the focus is the other characters (or Rita with the other characters).
As a director, Holmes appears to be fond of actors, which isn’t exactly a damning evaluation for a first-timer. While the filmmaking itself never rises above the level of workmanlike, Holmes zeroes in on more than a few emotional flashpoints and allows her cast (including herself) to really shine in those moments, big and small. Stefanie Owen gets a huge showcase here as Ruthie; she’s deserved to have been on people’s radars ever since she played Carrie Bradshaw’s younger sister on The Carrie Diaries, and she pretty much shoulder’s the central role of the film without having to resort to brash confidence. It’s a rare thing to see a teen girl hold court with vulnerability as her main weapon, but she does it.
The film is also a fine showcase for trans actress Eve Lindley, who is introduced with some really scriptwriting-by-numbers dialogue (she’s a diner waitress with dreams of seeing the great Christine Ebersole on Broadway, a detail that feels almost Mad Libs-ian in its randomness) but who rises above and makes a real impression on the film. After her story takes a turn for the brutal, Lindley and Holmes share one of the film’s best scenes in a moment that lets both actresses really shine.
Holmes herself occasionally has trouble tamping down her preternatural adorableness to play this character who’s been scraping by for decades in a cruel and hostile world. There’s something overdetermined about the smudgy eyeshadow and the trashy hairstyle that clashes with the way she often underplays Rita’s affect.
But again, it’s what’s happening on the margins where you’re going to be rewarded by this movie. The unexpected maternal notes in what could have otherwise been a throwaway authority figure played by SNL alum Siobahn Fallon. Or any of the many casual loving gestures that Holmes’ camera makes sure to pick up. It’s nothing to throw laurels at, not yet, but I’m honestly interested in seeing what Katie Holmes directs next.
