Run

Run (2020) is about a teenage girl in a wheelchair who begins to suspect her mother. Chloe is educated at home. She has several chronic conditions and takes a handful of medication a day. Her mother Diane manages all of her care; she cooks, prepares the pills and collects the post. Chloe has applied to university and is waiting for a reply; the letter never comes. One day she sees a box of medication in the shopping and her mother's name is on it. She notices the pills inside are the same ones she is given. When she asks, her mother has an explanation. It does not hold. The tension comes from Chloe's physical limits. There is no internet, the phone is off, the doors are locked and she cannot climb stairs. Every piece of information requires a separate plan, and those plans are the best scenes in it: an attempt to reach a pharmacy and a sequence on the roof. Aneesh Chaganty directed; his first film, Searching, also dealt with who a family member really is. Kiera Allen, who plays Chloe, is a wheelchair user. Hollywood had long been criticised for giving such roles to non disabled actors and the casting was discussed separately. Sarah Paulson plays the mother. It went to streaming rather than cinemas. It is short with no wasted scenes. It runs 90 minutes. Good for: thrillers, single location films, and twist narrative. Less good for: the medical abuse is distressing and some scenes are physically hard to watch.