Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

It would be easy to say Jessica Barden is to Holler as Jennifer Lawrence was to Winter’s Bone (2010). The comparisons are apt, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Barden ascend to great heights in the film industry. Previously seen in The End of the F***ing World, a British series available on Netflix, Barden’s performance as a young woman struggling to break out of industrial Ohio becomes much more impressive when you discover she’s British.

The industry is very different now, though, and there’s no telling where a young actor’s career will go. Holler has a lot in common with Winter’s Bone, both of them being about young women stoically doing what they have to do to scrape by in an environment complicated by poverty and a junkie parent. But, whereas Winter’s Bone took things to a bit more of an extreme, Holler is a more even-handed look at working class struggles in the Midwest. Specifically white working class struggles, it should be noted.

Ruth (Barden) is barely reaching her goal of graduating high school, living with her brother Blaze (Gus Halper), struggling to keep up with the rent in a house left behind by their mother, who has been given the choice of county jail for thirty days or a rehab clinic. Writer-director Nicole Riegel offers a strong debut feature film here, creating a nuanced portrait of a specific world. She seems to take the idea of “less is more” to heart, making it clear that the opioid crisis is a big part of what weighs on this community by only referencing it once: “That damn doctor” kept prescribing pills to Ruth and Blaze’s mom, after she injured herself at a factory job.

Much more is made of the disappearing manufacturing sector in this part of the country, with a sprinkling of pointed excerpts from Donald Trump speeches about bringing them jobs, heard on car radios. None of the characters here pay him much mind when his words can be heard; they neither celebrate nor demonize him. Perhaps the point is that they are simply trying to live their lives, preoccupied with things like eviction notices, utilities being turned off, or looking for another job when the factory closes.

Ruth and Blaze scrape up bits of cash scrapping metal and selling it. This is how they meet Hark (Austin Amelio), who lures them into far more lucrative but much more illegal scrapping, making their lives a lot more dangerous in the process. I watched a lot of Holler fearing something terrible will happen to one of these characters, although it’s possible this was never part of Riegel’s intentions. I’ve just been conditioned by years of movies teaching me to expect such things. And something terrible does happen, just not directly to either of them. We don’t have to see our protagonists endure deep trauma to understand the risks they’ve put themselves in. The tricky question is how much risk is worth giving Beth a chance to leave this town and go to college, in spite of the people at her school having no real faith in her future prospects.

Holler is the rare movie shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras where I found myself fairly impressed with the cinematography. The combination of the camera work and the editing contributes significantly to a uniquely downbeat tone. The performances are pretty deadpan across the board, which is slightly to the film’s detriment, as it denies the characters the chance to be fully realized. Still, the relative slow burn of the plotting is surprisingly effective in the end, as I found Holler to be increasingly compelling as it went along. Riegel offers us characters we can empathize with even when they make bad, or in some cases even sinister, decisions. This is a world I don’t exist in, but even if the characters don’t come across as fully realized, the world they inhabit does.

Overall: B