Directed By Jessica Michael Davis

Starring – Jessica Michael Davis, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Emily Bergl

The Plot – It’s the summer between high school graduation and the rest of their lives in a small town in Akron, Ohio, where best friends, Sam (Davis) and JJ (Kelly-Sordelet), were born and raised. While JJ is excited to start the life he has planned, Sam is excited to have the world at her fingertips, which starts by getting the hell out of Ohio. Sam has been offered a full ride scholarship to a local college, which everyone reminds her is a great opportunity, but she’s afraid that if she doesn’t escape now, she never will. But when JJ finds out his best friend is thinking of leaving, he dares her that he can prove why Ohio is worth sticking around for. Taken aback by Ohio’s charm- and JJ’s, Sam begins to realize there is beauty in the subtleties and ordinariness when it’s spent with someone special.

This film is currently not rated

Escaping Ohio | Official Trailer | Gravitas Ventures (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

It’s certainly easy to be impressed by a big budget production that continuously throws millions of dollars at the screen to influence an audience, but only at the level of ‘Escaping Ohio’ can you truly appreciate the excelling nature of passion and promise for the industry, which Jessica Michael Davis has in spades for her feature length directorial debut. With limitations of a budget so obviously under a million dollars, Davis instead trusts her heart in the air of her ambitiously atmospheric direction, returning home to not only bring to life the monotony and traditionalism of a small town that we all take for granted at one time or another in our lives, but also the misunderstood beauty that a setting like Akron feels primed for, with breathtaking scenery continuously on full display from cinematographer Mike Zobras’ affectionate eye for the rubber city, which intoxicated me with the same city institutions that I have frequented for nearly forty years of my own life. Davis’ direction moves mountains, bringing to life the same kind of awkwardness, hypocrisies, and immortality of teenage resiliency that a seemingly endless summer can bring to those held under its spell, and while a prematurely misleading title hints at Ohio being this void for entertainment and culture, Davis elicits a charming sincerity in her constructs that proves a great adoration for her birthplace, emphasizing such a unique canvas that feels freshly innovative for any previous movie set here that overlooked the vital specificities of its appeal. Davis also masterfully excels at conjuring the fluffy infectiousness of early 2000’s romantic comedies, but in the best kind of ways, with a pop-punk dependency for its soundtrack, and impressive versatility in its wardrobe choices that mirrored much of Sam’s own refreshing personality, which makes sense considering this is all being told from Sam’s perspective, with Davis providing occasional overhead narration for internalized feelings. Because Davis’ direction feels like the mission that her whole life has been building towards, it makes her writing of the script all the easier to tackle, primarily in Sam and JJ’s prolonged dilemma, which did summon a strong degree of uncertainty for just where this story and its characters would eventually end up. The conversations occasionally telegraph certain agendas, and the humor doesn’t feel as effective as its dramatic elements, but the dialogue isn’t afraid to delve deeper into the pasts and psychologies of its characters, giving us not only a firmer understanding of their sometimes ambiguous actions, but also a far greater value to the supporting characters surrounding them, who normally would be forgotten about by the film’s halfway point, but instead persist with deeper significance the longer the film goes. Sam and JJ are obviously the fuel that lights the movie’s fire, in terms of compelling storytelling, but I think there’s underlining value in the dynamic that Sam shares with her mother that seems to tap into much of the former’s preconceived fears about settling down in a situation that feels safe, with moments of reflection during the movie’s third act that were some of my favorite scenes and even sequences of the entire film. Proving Davis’ desire to be a triple threat, her acting might be some of her most admirable qualities, with a glowing radiance as Sam that infectiously charms the audience with the kind of three-dimensional personality of the girl next door who we actually get to spend every single minute of the film’s run time with. Davis’ wisdom with how to approach the camera from conveying emotionality gives her a built-in brand of professionalism that feels like she’s been doing this for decades, affording the audience accessibility to feel the highs of Sam’s stomach-turning butterflies as she tastes first love, but also devastation in the form of a world that comes crashing down with unforeseen inevitability that makes the days feel like minutes, with Sam’s unloaded tenderness for uncontrollable circumstances driving an empathetic quality that allows you to feel all of it alongside her. Collin Kelly-Sordelet is also a breath of fresh air as JJ, infusing scenes with an energy and eagerness that goes a long way in balancing the lived-in dynamic with Sam that effortlessly attains the kind of influential chemistry needed to outline blossoming feelings that permeate long before the characters have a chance to realize them.

NEGATIVES

While ‘Escaping Ohio’ was a blast that kept me thoroughly invested and entertained throughout, there were some hinderances with the script and production that definitely deserved more attention to expel the distractions that they ultimately served as. For starters, the film doesn’t feel long enough at 81 minutes, primarily in the depths of a rushed opening act that utilizes two montages to abruptly set up the primary plot. During this section of the film, the storytelling doesn’t feel as patient and thoroughly fleshed out as its following two acts, and while I can understand that Davis’ intention is to spend more time in the adventures of love between Sam and JJ, as well as the conflict that follows, it comes at the cost of some compelling set-ups during the film’s first few minutes that I wish served a far greater purpose to what follows, especially with Sam’s parents feeling glossed over a bit during those initial interactions. Where it also feels sacrificial is in the arc of JJ, who serves more than an appreciative influence in the bond between he and Sam, but rarely gets enough time away from her to confront his own fears with losing Sam and possibly throwing away his own set future to move west with her. The film is obviously and effectively centered around Sam and what she wants, but I don’t think it was asking too much to capture more of JJ’s growing isolation and discontent with losing Sam, especially considering two lives are at stake here, and not just one. Finally, it’s been a while since continuity errors have flashed on my radar, but there’s two key instances here where three years of shooting caught up to the production in trying to maintain the similarities of the actors’ appearances since they last shot. To no fault of her own, Jessica is responsible for both of these, as not only does her hair length and roots shift back and forth throughout various times of the film’s second half, but also a noticeable cut on her left elbow that I appreciated Davis for leaving in the film, is there one second, then gone in the very next scene that takes place in the same day. This won’t be a problem for anyone who doesn’t value continuity, but for me I saw the visibly compromising lines that even hard-working editing couldn’t fix, serving as the single instance where budgetary limitations created issues in the flow and consistency of the production.

OVERALL
‘Escaping Ohio’ does more with a considerably less budget, utilizing the passion and commitment of its assembled production to enact a pop-punk infused romantic comedy in the spells of summer, between two people forced to face the inevitability of change. With Jessica Michael Davis bearing her soul in a triple threat triumph that sees her going back to the place where her ambition once began, the film enacts a sweeter side to Ohio than most expected or even cared to realize, and despite some constriction in the depths of a brisky and breezy run time, the film undeniably proves that Ohio is for lovers, and that love takes those dreamers many miles towards realizing their own potential.

My Grade: 7/10 or B