I related to Brittany Runs a Marathon’s preview even though I’m not a hard partier and way older. I actually did couch to 5K, loved it, was willing to slowly work my way up to a marathon, but my body decided that breaking was more fun so we did that for awhile. I took the note, returned to walking, and my body said, “No. We decided that just the parts needed for running and walking will die first so the rest of you can catch up. Byeeeeee.” So in spite of my committed will and happiness, my body refused to cooperate and kept yanking me back even as I did physical therapy. My body wants me to be unhappy and preferably dead. It stubbornly refuses to reward me for enjoying the activities that are good for me, and it is hard not to take that personally when it is your body telling your spirit and mind, “Just lay down and die, bitch!”
Brittany Runs a Marathon is about a twenty-something woman in New York City who gets a wake up call that if she doesn’t change her life, her liver will pack a go bag. She can’t afford a gym so she starts running, but this single change makes her unable to stay in her old life that demands no improvement and simultaneously uncomfortable with fully embracing a new one because she doesn’t feel as if she fully belongs. When she is on the threshold of turning a new page, she hits a demoralizing setback. It turns out that what really needs fixing isn’t her physical health, but her mental health as she internalizes the spoken and unspoken curses in her life that condemn her to feeling like a loser when they become louder than all the real world people around her.
If you’re expecting a comedy, Brittany Runs a Marathon has funny moments, but by the end of the film, the guys in the audience with their dates were crying. It is bright and colorful to offset how incredibly serious it is. The titular character isn’t doing well, and the movie doesn’t pull any punches. She has a superficial friend disguised as a real one. She works multiple jobs and still can’t afford life. She is good at faking having fun with friends and hitting it off with guys, but when the noise dies down, she just has herself, and she is not a fan. If the movie does poorly, it will be because the marketing promises light and breezy, but the movie provides pathos and pain.
I think that first time director, Paul Downs Colaizzo, who also wrote Brittany Runs a Marathon, really nails the complexity of human existence in general, but also particularly for women in the twenty-first century. Just because her life begins to change for the better, for example, when she starts to get real friends, does not mean that she genuinely trusts them or her good fortune lasting for longer than a few moments. She has problems seeing them as real people because she is drowning in sorrow and seeing all the things that they have, but she doesn’t. When they objectively act and show that they love her, she rejects it. Even though we have been living with the titular character and know that it is a preemptive, protective act against being hurt, it is also hard to deny that she can be a jerk, and if she treated the viewer like that, most people wouldn’t be as understanding and stick around for more. Sometimes the reverse is true, and when another character changes for the better and offers an olive branch, it gets rejected, and we never see that character again. Colaizzo makes the supporting characters real, three-dimensional people with lives outside of Brittany, but until Brittany recognizes that, Colaizzo does not give us more details about them. Will the sequel be when Brittany figures out how to hide in plain sight by being empathetic and just focus on others? By the end, the film does not minimize casual, brief kindness from strangers. It is an act of personal growth when Brittany just exists in the moment with the stranger instead of instinctually swatting it away.
Brittany Runs a Marathon embraces the darker spectrum of human emotion in an unexpected way for a film with such a peppy title. It depicts on screen how everyday life, including the ways that we interact with the Internet or snail mail, is just as tactile and present in our physical world. It has a Sorry to Bother You aesthetic to depict reality without being noticeably surreal. It has all the glossy trappings of a slick Hollywood production with none of the formulaic emotional pitfalls and beats that we expect for films geared to women. Even though the movie unfolds in New York, other than the marathon, and the omnipresent hot dog vendor (I wish), there is nothing distinctly New York about it. I usually enjoy seeing films set in Manhattan because inevitably the filmmaker gives skyline porn, but Colaizzo is rooted with his characters, on the ground, not the sky. Without belaboring class, he visually adds subtle signifiers to objectively show why Brittany would feel uncomfortable with people that love her. Their places have more space and light and are shot from above or from a distance whereas Brittany’s spaces are shot closer up and seem cluttered. Their friends seem less frenetic and more comfortable in their skin. They are just in different places in life, but she feels an implicit judgment because she notices the difference. Money is an always an issue, and it can’t be solved by feeling better about yourself.
Brittany Runs a Marathon does a great job with diversity. There are no black women that I recall otherwise it does reflect the organic diversity of city life. There are two different types of Asian people-East Asia and South Asia. Brittany briefly horrified that she did something racist then snapping out of it and returning to rebuking her roommate felt natural. I have no idea if the onscreen diversity in her family is inspired by Colaizzo’s friend who inspired his story, but there is something about her whole story, no matter how briefly told, that adds up based on whom she more naturally connects with throughout the film.
Brittany Runs a Marathon is a downer if you’re looking for a comedy, but if you’re looking for an independent film with a slick Hollywood gloss about a young woman in crisis who grapples with herself more than her weight and appearance, then I highly recommend Colaizzo’s directorial debut. The cast is outstanding. You’ll leave silently meditating on what you just saw and how it applies to your life.
