Brittany Runs a Marathon Is a Pleasant Comedy for Couch Potatoes
I don’t like the term “dramedy.” It’s an ambiguously shallow attempt to label what are often times genre defying films. I’ve seen Brittany Runs a Marathon described as being a “dramedy,” and I can understand the proclivity to do so. As comedy goes, despite having the enourmously gifted comeddiane Jillian Bell as its lead, the film at its heart is a drama. This is great news for anyone who has wanted to see Bell expand her resume and show us just how good she really is. It may be bad news or at least uncomfortable news for anyone who has struggled with weight problems as the film unapologetically narrows on one type of this person and her personal journey to fix her own self-esteem issues while trying to get healthy.
Written and directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo, the story begins with a hard drinking, hard partying and overweight Brittany (Bell) at a bar with her friends. When one of them tells her, after praising the beauty of the rest of her friends, tells her she will always be the funniest person she knows, the look on Brittany’s face says it all. This is clearly not how she wants to be seen and yet, as we soon learn she relies an awful lot on humor to navigate the cold cruel world she inhabits. After a doctors visit she is told she must lose weitght to manage her detoriating health.
Working at a low wage job, she discovers that even the least expensive gym membership is too expensive for her so decides to get in shape by running. She starts to run, but after a few steps changes her mind and then, sucks it up and tries again successfully running one full block. She keeps the effort up though and soon finds herself jogging alongside her neighbor Catherine (Michela Watkins) of whom she clearly does not like. Catherine, on the other hand, seems to be not only affable but kind and patient and invites Brittany to join her in her running group.
Brittany is horribly mean to Catherine, but she seems to take it in stride and accept that Brittany doesn’t want to be friends. None the less, Brittany, after imprudently partying with her roommate Gretchen, she does show up for the running group. There she meets Seth, who like Brittany is struggling with the running so they decide to run together. Catherine winds up joining them because she just doesn’t like the other runners. Brittany wants none of this but Seth points out that this is just cruel and so the three become running partners.
Meanwhile, Brittany has been looking for extra work. She takes a job dog sitting and here she meets Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar from Pitch Perfect) who is the night shift replacement dog watcher but as it so happens is also staying at this house on the sly. Brittany doesn’t much like Jern either, Ambudkar is a tragically underused actor who is immently watchable and very much likable and so too is Jern. With her running group, Brittany has successfully finished a 5k run and imlausibly, Seth and Brittany decide to run a marathon.
Because many of these actors are great comedic talents the film certainly has a comedic flavor, but it also is a brutally honest portrayal of a woman unahppy with her life and her physical appearance. Brittany must learn to break free of her enablers, her roommate Gretchen especially, and learn to love those who genuinely care about the Brittany inside, regardless of her weight. But lose weight she does as she nears the upcoming marathon. She also falls for Jern and Jern for her, so theres that element of romantic comedy, but it is a drama at heart.
The beaufiful thing about this drama is how it manages to avoid treacly sweetness in favor of a more human truth. Brittany may be funny, but she’s not all that likable to begin with. As we stay with her she becomes more likable only because we’re watching her genuinely try to become a better person. This effort run afoul of lifes hurdles and her fumbles and missteps, that include her injuring herself just before the marathon. It is this kind of real struggle that makes the film worth watching.