Mobile Homes

★★★

Mobile Homes

If you’re tired of movie titles that don’t deliver — A Quiet Place too noisy; no cure for death in The Death Cure; the suspicion The Last Jedi isn’t — you should know Mobile Homes actually takes place inside one for long stretches.

Imogen Poots stars as Ali, single mother to an eightyear-old named Bone (Frank Oulton). Hers is some extremely laissez-faire parenting; she lets her boyfriend (Callum Turner) use the kid as a drug seller, chicken handler (they supply roosters for cockfights) and a distraction for dine-and-dash operations, literally stitching him up when things go wrong.

Ali seems the worst parent ever, but when she and Bone

get separated from the boyfriend and wind up in a mobile home being towed north, her maternal instincts kick in, and she starts to imagine she and her son could make a home for themselves. The home’s owner (Callum Keith Rennie), who builds and sells the trailers, might even help.

Mobile Homes is a first solo feature from French writer/director Vladimir de Fontenay, and he captures the economic uncertainty of modern-day America; even as Ali starts to put down roots, we sense one minor upset could take it all away.

It’s a decent portrait, and Poots is fully invested in the role. Some plot twists late in the film detract from the simple storyline, but not enough to derail the movie’s quiet charms. ★★★

Mobile Homes opens April 20 in Toronto.