Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town

Fury and defiance distinguish this week's sort-of-starting-to-figure-life-out indie comedy from last week's. Christian Papierniak's Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town surges from Venice Beach to Los Feliz on brash punk energy. It's powered by Heavens to Betsy tracks, the profane and often hilariously ill-informed sloganeering from a succession of flakes and cheats and shut-ins; and jagged editing rhythms. In montage sequences of Mackenzie Davis' Izzy doggedly schlepping any way she can, Izzy captures weight and brain-scrambling harshness of getting stuck between the pavement and the California sun.

But Papierniak's city is one you have to work at. His lead, Davis' rangy ne'er-do-well Izzy, hasn't made the effort, lately. She had been in a band with her sister (Carrie Coon) but that went bust years ago, and she's broke and couch-surfing. Then word comes that, on the other side of Los Angeles, her ex and her one-time best friend are being feted at an engagement party. Despite being utterly broke-ass and having no ride, Izzy vows to crash the celebration and win back her lover.

This is, of course, a terrible idea -- and one that it's sometimes hard to believe Izzy would bother with. But the journey in any picaresque indie is never about its wounded soul's destination. Here, it's about the town she's getting the fuck across of, miles of alleys to scoot down and paved leafy pathways between bungalows to crash through. Davis wields exquisite control over the character's recklessness, but it's too bad that Izzy's quest is Taylor Swift's stop-the-wedding hit "Speak Now" in a movie about a riot grrrl.