Lola is the directorial debut from Nicola Peltz Beckham in which she’s also the writer and the main star, all of which is quite ambitious for a first outing. The story Lola tells isn’t new, it’s the one about a small town girl who lives with an abusive family who dreams of getting away from it all.

We’ve seen it before, many times.

Lola is trapped in a life she didn’t want and nobody deserves. She lives at home with her Mother, Mona (Virginia Madsen), Stepfather, Trick (Trevor Long) and younger brother Arlo (Luke David Blumm).
All is not well within the household. Mona is white trash, pure white trash at that. The kind that puts on a God fearing front for the public but is an alcoholic, torn up bitter and twisted woman inside. Trick is the atypical hanger on stepfather on the scene who isn’t worth the space he occupies. It’s the kind of house where even the pet fish dies unnoticed in its bowl.

Unfortunately, Lola herself looks to be following pretty much the same path as her Mother, despite seemingly hating everything about her life. She works a dead end job during the day and in a strip club at night. She’s a borderline drug addict herself, begging and borrowing drugs off her ex boyfriend. She dreams of escaping the life she can see in front of her and making a clean break of it all.
So, why does she stick around?

Her little brother, Arlo. He needs someone to stick up for him and protect him. Arlo is only 9 years old but he’s showing signs that he isn’t going to be the norm. He likes to dress like his sister, wearing the same kinds of clothes and putting on makeup. Something that doesn’t sit well with Mona.

If all this sounds a bit too much like an exercise in box checking, then you’d not be wrong.

Let’s see what else we have.

We can always watch Lola slide into prostitution when she starts to lose her friends because she won’t tell anyone about the burden she has to carry on her shoulders.

And, then. Of course. When Lola is at her lowest point things get worse, and worse.

I’d be venturing into spoiler territory if I went on so I’ll stop here, if you do want to watch the film then I don’t want to ruin it. But, by about an hour in, you won’t care anymore and you’ll probably guess where this is all heading.

Lola isn’t likable, which would be fine if the film gave us something to latch onto. Instead, she feels like a character going through the motions, repeating her mother’s mistakes with no real self-awareness. She knows Mona is toxic but seems incapable of recognizing where she herself is headed. It’s frustrating to watch, especially when the cycle feels so avoidable.
Virginia Madsen takes her cues and runs with it. I mean, she’s properly engaged here and doing her damndest to make us not like her. And, deservedly so. Mona IS that Mother. She’s the one that has let herself slide into alcoholism and blamed everyone else for it. She is the piece of trash woman who left her Daughter to fend for herself and bring herself up. She is the very essence of everything that is wrong in an innocent girl’s life. Toxic and manipulative. All of it.

Honestly, it’s a little fascinating to see her flip the whole warm, nurturing mother persona she’s done in the past and just own this disaster of a character. It’s a bold move, and one she seems to have been working up to from roles in Anna Nicole and The Harry Quebert Affair,  and she absolutely nails it this time around.

As for the rest of it, it’s not actually a poorly made film, far from it. It looks good, I think, the acting is mostly good, and as mentioned, in the case of Virginia Madsen, great. The visuals are a little over the top in places, there are some shots where they look too polished when they’re meant to be depicting something destitute and or grungy. Well, in my opinion at least.

Shortly after this movie was released I saw a lot of negative comments about it, I tried not to read them as it came out as I was making this website and I wanted to watch it cold. One of the things that I did see mentioned a lot about it was that it was “poverty porn”.

Having watched it, I can see what the critics meant by that. I sincerely doubt that Nicola Peltz Beckham has ever had to worry about any of this kind of stuff in her real life. Or, known anyone that had. She’s just taken a look at the people who do live these kinds of lives and tried to understand it. And, she can’t, there is no real world experience for her to draw on, and it shows.
Other than the performance put out there by Virginia Madsen, there is little to no reason to watch this film. She’s genuinely the best thing in the movie, and it’s an especially good addition to her showcase.

It’s just a shame it’s in this film.

Perhaps the greatest sin the film commits of all is, spelling Virginia Madsens name wrong…

“Virginia Madison” – I mean, it’s close…

Availability:

Only available on VoD formats at the moment unfortuantely, SKY and Amazon both have it at the time of writing but you might need to check your local providers, or use a VPN to watch it.

Gallery:

Trailer:

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