Female Film Critics 24/375
The American Dream feels almost as far out of reach as the moon in Nicole Riegel’s compelling feature debut, Holler, which follows an enterprising teenager named Ruth (Jessica Barden) who would do just about anything to escape her inevitably bleak future in a dying Southern Ohio town. She’s smart, and college could be her ticket out, but paying for it means taking dangerous chances with a not-exactly-legal scrap-metal scavenging crew.
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Holler is a portrait of a community with diminishing opportunities for its citizenry. But, what sets this coming-of-age tale apart isn’t that it takes place in a dreary, down-beaten town in Southern Ohio. Instead, it’s the central character of Ruth, a whip-smart high-school senior who has managed to be accepted to a college.
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This is a realistic, unblinking view from life at the bottom of the socioeconomic strata, but Holler is mercifully free of the poverty porn found in some films of this type. It tells some hard truths about a town devastated by off-shored industries, a place where the only way to have a chance at life is to leave. Despite that, Holler is a hopeful film, focused on the bond between brother and sister.
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