Refuge (2012)

This is an unusual drama. A family is living a marginal life being the rejects of town, kids that should never have been born from druggie parents who abandon them before the film. The oldest daughter before the film has given up her escape, spent one year in college, to take care of her brain damaged brother and much younger sister. They think the world of her. The town considers her a slut. She picks up a drifter bum. Both are damaged people who do not give a lot of themselves. In the end she marries him giving up her dreams of getting out but having help from a man she loves in raising the family and he finds a place where he is needed and appreciated. They do not become middle class and he does not stop drinking and the younger sister does not stop being a druggie. It is just a slice of life and it is hard to see this as unrealistic or a fairy tale. It seems kind of gritty. I thought the directing was fine and the acting was good. It was a bit more real than I wanted.

So here's your totally average guy looses his job, gets in his truck, drives off to life in a new town. Walks into a joint (sportin a 4-day stubble), and presto-pronto hooks up with a totally unattached-available (but GTBW everyone), lovely-as-ever 'Krysten Alyce Ritter'.. binged.it/1tSopmT .. She immediately takes him home, rips his clothes off and 'sleeps' with him. Then two days later, he asks to move in with her, and in an eye-blink she agrees... talk about finding 'refuge.' It's a romanticized, sweet story, with a very decent cast. A majority of viewers will be finding it unlikely to say many negative things.. although the story, without too much argument, would have to be considered quite a bit more than fairytale unbelievable.

Easily the worst movie I have ever seen. The acting is good. The direction must be a joke on all of us. Human beings are not like this; we have a brain, and are better than this. We are not zombies. I believe this production and the direction of it, is intentional. It is bad. The movie is filled with clichés and lacks authenticity in most scenes. The atmosphere of the film is artificial. The characters, by themselves solicit sympathy, but feels like they are manipulated by the director, complicity or not, to utter the dialog, and complete the film. There is an ineffable quality to all the main characters and they are portrayed in the story as if to play a joke on the audience. I believe the director and the producers intended to betray the audience with this movie.

I stumbled across this on Netflix and apparently this was perhaps a straight to DVD video, so I wasn't expecting much but it turned out to be a sweet, heartfelt drama. Amy is a young woman with a bright future and college scholarship but chooses to stay home to care for her younger siblings when their parents abandon them. The movie starts after she has been home for a while and is dealing with the frustrations of small town life with parental responsibilities of two teenagers. When a stranger, Sam, drifts into town with his own challenges and interacts with Amy, they each have to come to terms with what happiness means to them.