Los Angeles Times - 23.08.2019

“Brittany Runs a Marathon”
is as simple and declarative as mov-
ie titles get. The film itself, bless-
edly, is anything but.
Asingular amalgam of humor,
heartache and self-help that won
the U.S. dramatic audience award
at Sundance, “Brittany” resolutely
goes its own way, entertaining us
as richly as anything that’s come
out in a while.
Written and directed by first-
timer Paul Downs Colaizzo and
starring Jillian Bell in a perform-
ance that defines breakout, “Brit-
tany” not only goes places you won’t
be expectingbut it also manages
to be simultaneously sympathetic

REVIEW

A rewarding race to the finish line

SETH (Micah Stock) and the film’s heroine (Jillian Bell) bond in “Brittany Runs a Marathon.”

Anna KoorisAmazon Studios

Sundance award winner

gets real about image and

self-worth, with a dazzling

turn from Jillian Bell.

KENNETH TURAN
FILM CRITIC

[See‘Brittany,’ E8]

CALENDAR

D F RIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019::L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

E

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The instant Brittany O’Neill
found out that a film about her life
was going to premiere at the Sun-
dance Film Festival, she started
dieting.
The movie is, after all, a transfor-
mation storyof how she’d gone from
an unmotivated, out-of-shape 20-
something to a healthy marathoner
who finished the 26.2-mile New
York City race in under four hours.
“The constant refrain with my
friends became: ‘I can’t eat any-
thing, I’m going to Sundance,’ ”
O’Neill recalled. “I was like, ‘I have
to look like an “after” photo.’ ”
And when she flew to Utah last
January for the debut of “Brittany
Runs a Marathon,” she had
dropped a lot of weight — one
pound away from the ideal number
she’d long dreamed of seeing on the
scale. But her thin frame wasn’t re-
ceived as positively as she’d hoped.
Upon greeting Jillian Bell, the ac-
tress who plays her in the film,
O’Neill was met with concern.
“I said something like, ‘Hey, I
adore you, and I don’t know how to
talk about this because it’s sensi-

tive for all of us, but I want to make

sure you’re OK,’ ” said Bell. “ ‘Are

you eating regularly? Are you all

right? You’re not normally in the

public eye, and that’s a lot of pres-

sure.’ ”

“And of course, I was like, ‘Jillian

thinks I’m too skinny!’ ” O’Neill said

with a laugh. “It’s so sick. But my

growth has been exponential be-

cause of that experience.”

Seven months after the festival

—where the film sold to Amazon

Studios in a major $14-million deal

—the women had reunited in Los

Angeles days before the movie’s re-

lease. O’Neill had flown in from New

York, where she works in fundrais-

ing at the International Rescue

Committee. She and Bell, who

came from her far-closer home in

the San Fernando Valley, were eat-

ing breakfast and trying to ignore

the heat outside at a restaurant on

the Sunset Strip. Because they live

on opposite coasts, the actress and

her real-life counterpart — both

now 35 — didn’t actually meet until

the film was months into produc-

tion.

“I mean, it wasn’t like she was

playing Margaret Thatcher or

ACTRESSJillian Bell, left, didn’t meet real-life counterpart Brittany O’Neill until “Brittany Runs a Marathon” had begun filming.

Francine OrrLos Angeles Times

Meet the Brittanys

The actress and the inspiration run through the ‘Marathon’ journey

Taylor Swift’s

second takes

Her early albums

were sold to Scooter

Braun. Swift says

she will rerecord

discs 1 through 5. E2

A trek through

L.A. galleries

Group shows collect

compelling work by

Vietnamese artists

and by female artists

in their later years. E2

What’s on TV..........E9

Comics................E10-11

AT THE MOVIES

Florida! America’s joke

state! Home to fire ants,

sand spurs, palmetto bugs,

manatees, alligators, hurri-

canes, floods, the “Florida

man” meme (plus actual

Florida men) and the “stand

your ground” law (see: Flor-

ida men).

Aland of promise and

false promises, built on

swamps and speculation,

purported site of the Foun-

tain of Youth and a place

where people go to die. With

its florid flora and prehis-

toric fauna, its end-of-the-

road otherness, its castles

literally built on sand, this

flat appendage dangling

from the southeast corner of

the continental U.S. makes a

fine backdrop for all kinds of

craziness. (I lived there for a

couple of years, attending an

alternative college in a Gulf

Coast tourist town whose li-

brary was in the pink marble

mansion of a circus mag-

nate, and know something

about it.)

The self-styled Sunshine

State has recently popped

up as the setting and subject

of two fine television come-

dies: “On Becoming a God in

Central Florida,” which pre-

mieres Sunday on Showtime

(the first two episodes are al-

ready available for free on

YouTube) and Pop TV’s

“Florida Girls.” It isn’t the

fancy Florida of “Ballers” or

“Siesta Key” but rather that

of TNT’s “Claws.” (Techni-

cally, like “Claws,” it isn’t

Florida at all: “On Becoming

a God” was filmed near New

Orleans, “Florida Girls” in

Georgia.)

Both series are set mostly

on the margins, among the

hardworking and the hardly

working. Honest, engaged

performances in each root to

reality whatever is exag-

gerated in the writing and

production — though much

that seems exaggerated is

actually straight reporting.

In the satirical “On Becom-

ing a God in Central Florida”

—set in 1992 in a place de-

scribed as “Orlando adja-

cent” — Kirsten Dunst plays

TELEVISION

REVIEWS

Trying

to make

things

work in

Florida

Two comedies delving

into hardscrabble lives

shine a comedic light

on the Sunshine State.

KIRSTEN DUNSTin

the new “On Becoming a

God in Central Florida.”

Patti PerretSony / Showtime

[SeeComedies, E9]

ROBERT LLOYD

TELEVISION CRITIC

[SeeO’Neill, E8]

By Amy Kaufman