Film Review: Run
Killer performances and Airtight pacing give Run Its edge
Director Aneesh Chaganty’s sophomore feature, Run, is a worthy followup to 2018’s Searching, even if it doesn't match its predecessor’s crafty brilliance. Clocking in at an economical 90 minutes, the film traverses through familiar beats, but its taut pacing and all-in performances elevate it well-above standard thriller fare. A giant step forward for disability representation in cinema, Run finds its white-knuckle suspense through accuracy and care of portrayal: Sarah Paulson gets top billing, but newcomer - and disabled actress - Kiera Allen is the real star. Minor spoilers ahead…
In 2018, filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching gave us a big step forward in Asian representation. A nimble screen-life thriller told through the lens of modern technology, the film spun an ingeniously clever yarn about a father in search of his missing daughter. And while Searching depicted a nightmare that could be understood universally, Chaganty fought for John Cho to be his leading man, bucking convention that easily could have placed a white actor in a nearly identical role for a nearly identical story. Fast forward to 2020, and Chaganty - returning with Searching writing partner Sev Ohanian - has delivered another white-knuckle tale breaking ground for representation, this time with disabled actress Kiera Allen. Leaning much more heavily into predictable B-movie sensibilities, Run’s no-frills execution never quite reaches the brilliant levels of its predecessor, but there’s something admirable about its fat-free storytelling. Taut and sharp, Run’s two killer performances fill out the gaps left by its thin plotting.
Taking its cues from real-life Munchausen-by-proxy cases such Dee Dee Blanchard and Kathy Bush, the film centers around a wheelchair-bound Chloe Sherman (a fantastic Kiera Allen) and her doting but domineering mother, Diane (Sarah Paulson). With an opening crawl that details a list of Chloe’s purported maladies - from asthma to diabetes to paralysis - Run doesn't waste much time getting into the narrative meat; by the film’s 20-minute mark, our protagonist has already figured out the depths of her mother’s gaslighting, abuse, and control. From here, it’s a predictably effective mashup of stalker and thriller tropes: If you’ve ever seen Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, or any of the suspense films Chaganty and Ohanian’s script evokes, Run isn’t likely to surprise.
“…Run’s no-frills execution never quite reaches the brilliant levels of its predecessor, but there’s something admirable about it’s fat-free storytelling.”
Run might have a frustrating time saying anything poignant or deep about a very real and dangerous disorder, but it never pretends to elevate itself above its station as a straight-shooting thriller. Helping to sell its gripping, escalating tension are a pair of impressive and committed performances from Sarah Paulson and newcomer Kiera Allen. Paulson, already a Ryan Murphy go-to, has seemingly perfected the portrayal of unraveling and unhinged psyches, and she’s in top scenery-chewing form here; her Diane Sherman has a demented, sinister obsession that stems from genuine parental concern, and that just makes her even more dangerous.
And while Paulson might get top-billing, we should really be talking more about Kiera Allen, who is nothing less than a revelation in Run. With the film’s subject matter combined with its gravitation towards silliness and camp, there’s a real trap that could have mired the narrative in insensitivity and offensiveness, but there’s palpable care in the way Chloe is portrayed. Allen, being an actual wheelchair-user, conveys the frustrations with her limitations in a very real way, but at the same time, she never loses her agency. Run obviously frames Diane as the big bad of its story, but it also takes the effort to flesh out a much more abstract antagonist: inaccessibility. The film goes to great lengths to demonstrate all of the obstacles Chloe faces that an able-bodied individual wouldn’t even think twice about - stairs, tight spaces, and unreachable heights are all elements that amplify her waking nightmare. Emotive, capable, and dryly funny when she needs to be, it’s no exaggeration to say that Allen carries Run on her shoulders.
With the likes of films such as Alone, Unhinged, and Underwater, 2020 has been somewhat of a renaissance for what-you-see-is-what-you-get genre fare. Lean, mean, and anchored by two ferocious actresses, Run is another iteration of such simple cinematic pleasure. A nail-biting rooftop escape, a smarter-than-average samaritan, a frantic climax at a hospital - Chaganty and company pull from a familiar bag of tricks, but coupled with Kiera Allen’s empathetic and groundbreaking performance, Run is refreshingly watchable.
