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"The Free World"
U.S. Dramatic Competition
HH
Love gets bloody and bizarre in "The Free World," an arty but narratively loopy take on the "lovers on the run" trope. Mohammad Lundy (Boyd Holbrook) is trying to restart his life after being freed for a crime he didn't commit, having spent some violent years in a Louisiana penitentiary before converting to Islam. He works in an animal shelter, where one day he treats a dog battered by his owner. The owner, a cop, also beats his wife, Doris (Elisabeth Moss) — and one night Mohammad finds a bloodied Doris in the shelter desperate to find her injured dog. Mohammad takes Doris to hide out in his spartan apartment, and soon the pair are (for reasons made clear later) trying to get across the border to Mexico. Writer-director Jason Lew creates some painterly images to match Doris' pie-in-the-sky optimism, and he is blessed with Moss, an actor congenitally incapable of giving a dishonest performance. But the straight-arrow plot only succeeds if one believes the characters' incredulous motives or the moments when their good sense evaporates.
— Sean P. Means
"The Free World" screens again at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival: Thursday, 12:30 p.m., Redstone Cinema 2, Park City; Friday, 8:30 a.m., Egyptian Theatre, Park City; Saturday, 12:15 p.m., The Grand Theatre, Salt Lake City.