Based on the true story of a year in the life of Amanda Ogle (played ferociously by recent Oscar-nominee Rose Byrne), Tow tells the story of the Seattle woman living in her aging Toyota Camry, trying desperate to pull her life back together and find work in the aftermath of a host of personal problems. While she’s in an interview for a job at a dog-grooming spa, her car is stolen and found a day later parked illegally. As a result, a towing company picks it up and takes it to their lot, where it sits until Amanda can pay the hefty towing and storage fines. Not understanding how these costs could be her responsibility, she eventually sues the towing company, which subsequently drags out the legal process over a year, opting to bankrupt Amanda rather than simply release the car and dismiss the ever-growing fines.
This age-old story of one underestimated, seemingly insignificant person going against a big company (whose sleazy lawyer is played perhaps a little too villainously by Corbin Bernsen) is elevated substantially by Byrne and a surprisingly stacked supporting cast. Dominic Sessa plays her pro bono lawyer Kevin, who is impressed with Amanda’s research skills, and the two end up working side by side on the case; Octavia Spencer plays Barb, the rule-driven manager of a women’s homeless shelter, which is occupied by residents played by the likes of Ariana DeBose and Demi Lovato; and Simon Rex plays Cliff, an employee of the tow truck company who feels bad for Amanda’s situation but can’t actually help her in any real way.
The driving force behind Amanda’s pursuit of her car is that she needs it to get to Utah to visit her teenage daughter, Avery (Eighth Grade’s Elsie Fisher), living with Amanda’s ex and struggling with self-confidence, desperately in need of motherly advice. Them being separated is yet another product of Amanda’s earlier substance abuse problems—issues that return when she becomes hopeless about getting her car back.
Directed by Stephanie Laing (Family Squares, plus many episodes of Physical and Palm Royale), Tow sometimes feels a bit like a Movie of the Week, but with much better actors attached. Still, there is something timeless and deeply human about this story of one woman’s resilience in challenging a deeply flawed system with little more than pure will power. Byrne beautifully captures the shame Amanda feels about being homeless (a fact she manages to keep from her daughter) and her incremental acknowledgement of her situation so she can properly deal with it. Her desperation feels entirely authentic, but so does her climb back out of the hole she’s in. Byrne’s inspired performance is what saves the film from feeling trite and overly sentimental.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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