Entertainment Weekly - February 24 - March 3, 2017

DO YOU HAVE DAYS WHEN EVERY-

one is seemingly conspiring

against you? For the heroine of this

darkly comic thriller, Melanie Lynskey’s

depressed nursing assistant Ruth, those days

make up her entire life, which is full of

professional unpleasantness, supermarket

rudeness, and dog poop on her lawn. The

final straw arrives when Ruth is burgled and

loses her computer, her prized silverware,

and some antidepressants. With the police

doing little to solve the crime, Lynskey’s

character teams up with Elijah Wood’s odd-

ball, heavy-metal-loving neighbor to track

down her possessions. The quest will lead

them to an array of colorful and/or danger-

ous folks, including a villainous trio played

by Jane Levy,Dexter actor Devon Graye, and

the Jesus Lizard singer David Yow. Macon

Blair’s first film as writer-director won the

Grand Jury Prize at the recent Sundance

festival, which is an impressive achieve-

ment, although the filmmaker certainly has

experience with genre movies featuring ill-

equipped heroes. Blair played an inept

vigilante in Jeremy Saulnier’s terrific 2014

revenge taleBlue Ruin and appeared in the

same director’s even better follow-upGreen

Room, about a punk band held captive by

neo-Nazis. Here, Blair uses essentially the

same template to reconfigure the buddy-cop

film—at one point, Ruth even flashes a

toy police badge—with more deliberately

comedic, but similarly enjoyable, results.B+

(Netflix, Feb. 24)

I don’t feel at home

in this world anymore.

STARRING Melanie Lynskey, Elijah Wood

DIRECTED BY Macon Blair

RATING NR | LENGTH 1 hr., 36 mins.

REVIEW BY Clark Collis@ClarkCollis

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Elijah

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I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE.

: ALLYSON RIGGS/NETFLIX;

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE

: WARNER BROS. PICTURES;

RINGS

; PARAMOUNT PICTURES;

FIFTY SHADES DARKER

: DOANE GREGORY/UNIVERSAL