To Leslie is a sad, sweet country song of a movie, with a steel-guitar twang of love and loss. Screenwriter Ryan Binaco was inspired by his own mother for this film, conjuring her memory in the spirit of Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970) or maybe Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974). Better Call Saul producer Michael Morris makes his feature directing debut. The film is ultimately just a little contrived and its final scene is not entirely plausible, but the drama is always fiercely watchable due to an undoubtedly marvellous performance from Andrea Riseborough – who last week put this little-seen indie picture back into the conversation and made industry headlines with her sensational outsider breakthrough into the Academy Awards best actress nomination list.
Riseborough plays Leslie, a single mum who five years previously won nearly $200,000 on the Texas state lottery, a life-changing event for all the wrong reasons. Leslie squandered every dime on drink and drugs and now she is virtually homeless, a grotesque embarrassment to all the locals who celebrated with Leslie as she held the giant cheque up in front of her neighbourhood bar for the TV news cameras. She is estranged from her parents and her grownup son James (Owen Teague) – whose birthday provided the lucky numbers – and she is still entirely addicted with no intention of joining NA or AA, a subject which is never raised.
