Marathon (2021) Film Review
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
Fans of mockumentary comedies including Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap and such Christopher Guest classics as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show should get a kick out of the new film Marathon, which follows a group of runners hoping to find fame, fortune, future opportunities, or at least a 26-mile break from banal lifestyles. Marathon doesn’t land big laughs as much as the aforementioned films, but it is a fun 82-minute exploration of human foibles and dreams.
An amateur camera crew records the dreams and goals of entrants in the annual Devil’s Canyon Marathon, a grueling desert run that is woefully low on funding. Race organizer Ed Clap (Jimmy Slonina in one of the film’s funniest performances) gets no help from City Hall, and his prototype for a new running shoe isn’t going gangbusters, either. Young mother Abby Dozier (Anais Thomassian) is trying to escape the doldrums of taking care of her baby, Jenna Kowalski (Natalie Sullivan) wants to break the record of running a marathon while dressed as a fruit (a banana, in this case), Ryan O’Brien (Andrew Hansen) wants to put his divorce behind him and qualify for the Boston Marathon, and Shareef Washington (Tavius Cortez) wants to quiet his critical, triathlete sister while shining a light on systemic racism.
Cowriters/codirectors Anthony Guidubaldi and Keith Strausbaugh deliver chuckles and smiles more than out-loud laughter with Marathon, but overall the effort is a fun one well worth investing time in. The cast members go all-in on their performances, and though some characters and running gags miss the mark — for example, O’Brien’s character feels grating and unredeeming in his knocking pretty much everyone around him (Hansen does an admirable job playing this egotistical jerk) — the film is always amusing. Guidubaldi and Strausbaugh swing for the fences with their humor and social commentary, and the stuff that works, works quite well, indeed.
Marathon, from Gravitas Ventures, is now available on digital and On Demand.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/) and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Ghastly Grinning (ghastlygrinning.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com, which has now ceased publication because of the death of its editor/publisher Joe Kane but is available in back issues) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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