If there’s one lesson that Seattle resident Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) learns over and over in “Tow,” it’s that typically when it rains, it pours. A veterinary technician with a historical past of alcoholism, every of her makes an attempt to show her life round finally ends up producing a brand new impediment. She struggles to keep up a relationship together with her teenage daughter who lives in Utah, however solely will get to see her when she will make the drive to go to. However that’s exhausting to do whenever you’re between jobs and might’t afford a spot to dwell. And regardless of years of on-the-job expertise, many potential employers received’t rent her as a result of she doesn’t have a school diploma.
Her issues intersect in a approach that ensures her complete life revolves round her 1991 Toyota Corolla. The beat-up automobile is her solely approach of visiting her daughter, her shelter from the weather on chilly nights, and, when she finds work doing pickup responsibility for a veterinary service, her technique of incomes an earnings. And when it’s stolen throughout a job interview, the existence that she was already straining to carry collectively collapses in a single day.
It isn’t lengthy earlier than the stolen automobile is discovered, however it’s taken to an impound lot that asks her to pay lots of of {dollars} to retrieve it. That’s more cash than she has — and he or she doesn’t see why she’s being charged for being the sufferer of a criminal offense — however the towing firm worker (Simon Rex) reluctantly tells her it’s a company coverage and there’s nothing he can do.
Unwilling to take that information laying down, Rose begins to pursue authorized choices. She recordsdata a movement to sue the towing firm, representing herself at a listening to she finally ends up profitable when the corporate declines to point out up. However the company quickly responds with a sequence of difficult authorized maneuvers that place her on the hook for a $21,000 invoice to one in all its subsidiaries. She refuses to surrender, whilst she bounces between shelters (one in all which is run by an anti-addiction hardliner performed by Octavia Spencer), relapses into ingesting, and turns into estranged from her daughter over her lack of visits. She ultimately accepts the assistance of an idealistic younger lawyer named Kevin Eggers (“The Holdovers” breakout Dominic Sessa), who guides her by what stays of a 369-day authorized battle to get her automobile again.
Based mostly on a real story (and boasting the actual Amanda Ogle as an govt producer), “Tow” presents itself as each a story of 1 lady’s perseverance and a glance into the ways in which the bureaucratic gears of American society can inadvertently synchronize to work in opposition to one particular person. Whereas among the supporting characters come throughout as one-note, Byrne embodies Amanda with limitless quantities of braveness and a deep sense of private pleasure, whilst she navigates her personal demons and a world that simply needs her to go away. And she or he doesn’t simply battle her personal monetary misfortunes, as she’s additionally pressured to take care of the chance value of getting most of her waking hours taken up by paperwork and different bureaucratic duties. Whether or not she’s attempting to get her automobile again, working round on the lookout for a shelter with an open mattress and convincing its operators that she meets their particular set of necessities, or looking for a bench to sleep on with out upsetting the social hierarchy of different individuals who dwell on the streets, her time is at all times stuffed up by duties which are each unproductive and unavoidable.
With “Tow,” first-time director Stephanie Laing has made a a easy, message-based film that’s primarily fascinated by making its viewers extra empathetic concerning the day by day struggles confronted by individuals dwelling in poverty. To attain that finish, it typically paints the world with a cartoonishly easy brush — inventory characters just like the wealthy company lawyer who takes all of his calls from nation golf equipment and bougie gyms whereas speaking about his most well-liked safari locations don’t win the movie any factors for nuance. And its portrayals of addicts dwelling on the streets and providing to commerce prime sleeping benches for blowjobs comes dangerously near being crass poverty porn.
However even with these narrative shortcomings, it’s exhausting to dispute that the movie has good intentions. There are many Amanda Ogles on the earth coping with unimaginable bureaucratic stresses simply to get by the day, and maybe “Tow” will make somebody be slightly kinder to one in all them.
Grade: B-
“Tow” premiered on the 2025 Tribeca Movie Pageant. It’s presently searching for U.S. distribution.
Need to keep updated on IndieWire’s movie critiques and demanding ideas? Subscribe right here to our newly launched e-newsletter, In Assessment by David Ehrlich, by which our Chief Movie Critic and Head Critiques Editor rounds up one of the best new critiques and streaming picks together with some unique musings — all solely obtainable to subscribers.