Certificate: 15 (strong language, threat, sexual threat, drug misuse). Running Time: 86 mins. UK Distributor: Bulldog Film Distribution
WHO’S IN IT?
Kelley Kali, Deon Cole, Wesley Moss, Brooklynn Marie, Ira Scipio, Andrew Galvan, Jacolyn Holmes, Xing-Mai Deng
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Kelley Kali and Angelique Molina (directors, writers, producers), Roma Kong (writer, producer), Deon Cole and Capella Fahoome (producers), Erick Del Aguila (composer), Becky Baihui Chen (cinematographer), Angelica Lopez and Katie McClellan (editors)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A widowed young mother (Kali) suddenly finds herself and her young daughter (Moss) homeless…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON I’M FINE (THANKS FOR ASKING)?
Often during co-director, co-writer, co-producer and lead actor Kelley Kali’s feature debut I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking), you ponder whether or not the filmic vision that she and her fellow director/writer/producer Angelique Molina present was greatly influenced by early 90s cinema. There’s more than a tinge of both Spike Lee and Richard Linklater in its mish-mash of societal commentary with stoner misadventures, which despite the very modern-day aesthetics (which put this film more in the category of recent auteurs like Sean Baker and Andrea Arnold) prove to be surprisingly timeless approaches in showing the rough ins and outs of living on the margins of civilisation.
For Kali’s Danny, though, she literally is living on those margins: the film opens with her and her young daughter Wes (Wesley Moss) living in a tent somewhere in the California hills, which the sprog has been told is merely a fun extended camping trip. The harsh reality is that Danny has been made homeless following the death of her husband, and she has been gathering whatever cash she can get from her regular hairdressing gigs to put a deposit down on a new apartment for the two of them to live in. The film follows Danny throughout her day as she races against time (on roller-skates, no less) to raise the remaining amount needed for the deposit, made complicated by customers that end up shorting her, soul-destroying stints delivering food across town, and most of all the COVID-19 pandemic that is raging on in the background.
Stylistically, Kali and Molina’s film is not unlike something that you would see around the early 90s, with bright flashy opening credits set to a timely hip-hop soundtrack, and an easy-going, somewhat laid-back pace that suggests an overall lighter tone. However, the diegetic components are far removed from that 90s attitude. I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking) explores some deeply troubling themes that are fiercely relevant in our current times, such as economic imbalance, homelessness, and deep-rooted misogyny. Throughout the film, Kali’s Danny experiences these things and more as she struggles to survive in a world that won’t hesitate to lie, cheat or coerce their way out of giving this woman what she and her impressionable young daughter are rightfully owed in life, which can often be uncomfortable to watch as you can see all the signs that this character is walking further and further into a state that she might not be able to fully escape from, and yet she persists because there’s no other option but to keep pressing on. She is, in some ways, a modern-day Mr. Micawber, the ever-optimistic character from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield who always believed that something would turn up, even when life keeps dealing them a bad hand.
As Danny, Kali blends that Micawber energy with a fierce determination that makes her character someone that you comfortably want to see succeed. Her sparky lead performance displays as much resilience as there is vulnerability, but despite her dire situation she rarely sees herself as a victim, and more as a hustler trying to get the best deal that she can possibly get for what remains of her family, while still keeping herself from sinking to the lowest of lows in order to achieve it. Even in scenes where she is hanging out and smoking some weed with her best friend (a scene-stealing Brooklynn Marie), Kali keeps her façade of being better off than she actually is at a realistic length, until it all comes bubbling out with plenty of built-up emotion. She is endlessly watchable in the role, enough to where you do find yourself start to fret whenever she experiences a major setback in her plans, because she does a very good job of making you empathise with this character and making you root for her goals and wishes to come true, which makes it all the more concerning when something bad does happen.
From a purely structural standpoint, the movie is a little uneven. It’s the kind of film that likes to go from one thing to the next with little in the way of thorough connection, and some dialogue scenes feel repetitive in how they relate back to the protagonist’s core emotional state. The mature exploration of its societal issues, as seen through the eyes of a main character that you are rooting for all the way, do keep the movie afloat, but its imbalanced structure adds a few unnecessary bumps in the road.
Even if some parts need sanding down, there is enough to like and respect about I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking) to recommend it for anyone looking for their next modern-day call-back to the care-free style of the early 90s.
SO, TO SUM UP…
I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking) is a mature and engaging exploration of modern-day societal issues, told with an early 90s flare by co-filmmakers Kelly Kali and Angelique Molina, the former of whom also putting in a sparky lead performance that has you rooting for her character, despite the film’s more uneven structure.
I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking) is now showing in cinemas nationwide –click here to find a screening near you!
It is also available to rent exclusively on Curzon Home Cinema.
