Rating: B-/C+
I was drawn to the film No Future upon finding Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Catherine Keener has a lead role as the mother of a son with addiction. She is a talented actress and has a range of roles to her credit. This outstanding performance is one to watch, especially dealing with the topic of addition and all that the families go through. No Future is written by Mark Smoot and co-directed with Andrew Irvine as a follow up to their prior film, The Love Inside. Smoot wrote a great role of a mature woman and Keener is remarkable in the lead.
In no future, Keener may be almost unrecognizable to some viewers in the first scene as she greets her son Chris (Jefferson White) who returns home one evening. Her face bears the signs of the wear and tear of the stress and her concern for Chris as he struggles with addiction. She doesn’t really believe him when he said he was out looking for work. She does not fully know his state of mind when he goes behind closed and locked doors. She knows it is not a good sign when she cannot get through to him. Her performance as a mother losing a son is so authentic and may ring true for anyone who has lived this life with a family member.
Chris had actually paid a visit to a former good friend, Will (Charlie Heaton, “Stranger Things”), a recovering addict who now has a steady job and attends NA meetings. Chris wants to reconnect with him, but Will does not want to because he now has a supportive and understanding girlfriend Becca (Rosa Salazar, Alita: Battle Angel), and intends to establish a long – term relationship. However happy Chris is for Will, depression is apparent. Will is not actually as strong as he may try to appear to be and when he learns of Chris fatally overdosing, the ghosts of his past begin to surface.
Will is haunted by guilt and decides to visit a portion of the funeral services, but with the intent to visit Claire, Chris’s mother. Claire is grieving and clings to Will as if he is her son, but this bond of grief and remorse develops into something else. They may think they only have each other for healing the wounds of their pasts and mending their damaged lives, but the relationship goes to territory that is not a healthy one in the long run. When secrets are revealed, hearts are broken, and the spiral begins again.
Academy Award nominee Jackie Earle Haley has a few, but very effective scenes as Will’s father. One is with Will early on, then later with Claire as they discuss their sons one day. Rosa Salazar is also impressive in this dramatic role, and I look forward to viewing her future work. Charlie Heaton gives a very good performance as a recovering addict. The film also stars Austin Amelio, Heather Kafka, Jason Douglas, Kia Nicole Boyer, Mollie Milligan, Jasmine Shanise, and Marissa Woolf.
Run time: 1 hour 29 minutes and is R rated
No Future was an Official Selection: Features at the Tribeca Film Festival and Gravitas Ventures released the acclaimed drama recently on VOD nationwide.
Source: Gravitas Ventures