*This is a true story!

Running a marathon is easily one of the hardest things a human can do willingly. It is months, sometimes years of training culminating in a grueling 26.2 miles run. The great thing about marathon’s though is they make great metaphors for life, and that is exactly what the new movie Brittany Runs a Marathon does.

Directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo, and written based off the journey of his roommate, this movie shows us the journey of Brittany with weight loss and self esteem. She starts the movie as lazy, theatre worker who can hardly get herself off of her couch. At a routine visit to the doctor she gets inspired by his brashness towards her health, and she step by step starts her adventure to run the NYC marathon. She makes friends along the way, has a love story, and of course has self doubt as well. However, let us remember my friends this is a movie, so we usually know how that turns out.

The pacing throughout this movie was pretty brisk and there was only one area of the movie that really did not work for me. That was the scene where she went home, and it felt really shoe horned in and unnecessary detour to an otherwise tight story. Other than that, this was a really well made movie with some high quality acting.

There is also a good overarching tone in this movie about health and wellness. That is obviously a huge part of our society presently, and this movie touches on it in a very tasteful way. It is a great message to put out to the world and I dont think anyone can disagree with that.

Stock Watch

Stock Up – Jillian Bell is someone I have been a huge fan of since her days on Workaholics. She seemed to be cut from the Melissa McCarthy playbook of physical comedy, and that always makes me laugh. This is a dramatic turn for her and she absolutely nailed it. She still gets to use her humor a lot but nails every chance she got to be emotion of the movie. She also went on her own personal weight loss journey for this movie and I have so much respect for that!

Stock Up – Utkarsh Ambudkar plays opposite Bell in the love story of this story, and I loved him in the role. He played more of a non chalant character but you could tell he had a lot of heart in every scene. I had only really seen him in Brockmire, which is one of the funniest shows on television, but I am excited about his future.

*A couple other tidbits

• Micah Stock and Michaela Watkins as the stereotypical friends were great in their roles. Neither of them had a ton to do but I enjoyed both of their presences.
• LIL REL!!
• The Music in this movie was actually very underrated and I though made the pacing even better.

Brittany ran more than just a marathon in this movie and I think that Collaizo and the rest of the team behind this movie have an important lesson to tell. It’s not a perfect movie, but it has a great story that a lot of people could learn from.

Juice Rating: 

*You can find all of my Movie Ratings here.