Thoughts on Running on Empty

Running on Empty (1988) directed by Sidney Lumet. I had seen this before, and liked rewatching it on Criterion. It’s a family drama where Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play former 60s radicals whose anti-war bombing of a lab nearly killed someone, and they’ve been fugitives ever since, dragging their sons along to change aliases and backstories every several months, while relying on an underground network of supporters to get by.

Their graduating high school son Danny (River Phoenix) is burnt out by all the moving and secrecy and constant change, and when he has a potential future as a talented pianist and having a loving sharp girlfriend (Martha Plimpton), it threatens to blow up their nomadic life on the run. Phoenix was really great at playing a more adult role while still seeming like a frustrated kid, and I adored Plimpton as this funny rebellious teen girl who felt more fleshed out and not a stock love interest.

I really liked this film because it’s a tight family drama where they seem incredibly loving, but also lowkey abusive and toxic, where the parents are pressuring their sons into never leaving their “unit” and living with the stress and consequences from a crime they weren’t responsible for. I really didn’t like the father, Arthur, who may have been a liberal radical but acts way more like a conservative Boomer, barking orders at his family like a drill sergeant. He just frustrated me whenever he’d shut down dissent or snap at anyone who questioned how unhealthy their way of life was for their kids, and put guilt on them for any kind of social outlet they wanted to have.

Danny is the obvious protagonist to feel for, but I really felt for Lahti’s mother figure, Annie, who is mixed between feeling guilt and remorse for her past while wanting to keep her family together and avoid the Feds. Arguably, one of the best moments of the film is when she sneaks a restaurant meeting with her long-estranged father, reconnecting over their conflicted past in which she blamed him for the war and prejudices, her immature rashness as a youth while still believing in her politics, and trying to set up a safe way out for Danny’s future. Lahti and Steven Hill as her father played this with a lot of heart and weariness, where you could feel both the history and distance between them.

This is a great film, I’m glad I watched it again.