On Tubi, I watched the 1996 indie film Manny & Lo, directed by Lisa Krueger, and starring a very young Scarlett Johansson and Aleksa Palladino, as orphaned sisters who escape their foster homes and live on the run, traveling in their station wagon, stealing food from stores, sleeping outdoors or in model homes. Lo (Palladino) is a pregnant teenager, and is trying to take care of her sister to keep them both out of the system while figuring out how she is going to take care of her baby when it arrives.
While they stay in an empty winter cottage, they spot a clerk (Mary Kay Place) at a baby store, decide they need her to help them, and abduct her, keeping her hands and feet bound, as Lo is trying to call the shots and control everything. The clerk, while not intimidated by the girls, is very righteous, claiming that people will come looking for her, and even when they unbound her hands and she realizes Lo is pregnant, she still stays around because she doesn’t want to leave minors alone to handle a pregnancy.
Manny (Johansson) who has been having more of a crisis of conscience between being loyal to her sister but also liking the clerk and having empathy for her, feels stuck between the two of them. I had heard of Johansson from this movie when I was 13, watching it way back on Bravo, and really liked her in this movie, thinking she came off as smart and talented at a young age, and she acts well against the veteran Mary Kay Place, where she doesn’t come off as childish next to her.
Palladino was good, I liked that she had this messy punk teen look to her, and her freakouts and mood swings when in this messed up situation felt very realistic, like how a pissed off but scared teenager would actually act.
I’m glad I watched this again, it held up well as a good 90s indie film with an early performance by a future movie star.
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