Brilliantly understated, the viewer gets to feel like a voyeur in this rich slice of life film.

Really good. Winter's Bone light.

Authentic and genuine in both look and portrayals that don't try and patronize the audience or whine about anything so.... those are positives.

The acting made it for me.

Well made and well acted 2.6. A little too realistic and boring for my taste but I’m sure it paints a great picture of the area

Fantastic, heartwarming Anything John Krasinski directs is magnificent

With the right Material Jessica Barden could be great is what we learn from Nicole Riegel's first feature film. Unfortunately, the interesting premise becomes all too familiar and cliche ridden. We're taken out of the film when Donald Trump's voice becomes prominent. I don't know what the moving is trying to say. It is completely ordinary. Who knew scrap metal could be sound deadly? Final Score: 4.3/10

Making a film with familiar subject matter and circumstances only works when the narrative includes characters who credibly fit the scenario. Unfortunately, that's the downfall of writer-director Nicole Riegel's meandering debut feature about an intelligent but rough-hewn high school senior who takes up rogue scrap metal pilfering as a means to earn money to attend college and thereby extract herself from the small Ohio Rustbelt town where she grew up (and would not have much of a future). Despite a seemingly plausible story line, many of the specific events that it incorporates are a stretch, often going underdeveloped or wholly unresolved. That's especially true of incidents involving the spitfire protagonist, most of which seem to mistakenly rely on her gritty-edged personality as the rationale for their inclusion, regardless of whether or not they're believable or effectively brought to conclusion. The casting is somewhat questionable, too, particularly the selection of a 28-year-old actress to play an 18-year-old character, a flawed choice that not even makeup and costuming can effectively conceal. While the film does feature some superb cinematography and a realistic production design, those attributes are hard-pressed to make up for the other shortcomings. Perhaps much of this can be chalked up to this being the filmmaker's first full-length outing (let's hope so).

From the first scene of Holler to the last image, there's no question or doubt about what movie you're seeing; no dualism or magical realism you go in and out of. What we see through the bleak blue screen scenery of DP Dustin Lane's 16 mm camera work is the bleak dreary life of small industrial towns where 'the factory/plant/mine' is what keeps the town existing. And when they close down, so do the towns and those who populate it. The emotional angst, depression, and frustration are so palpable, which is so impressive in that director Nicole Riegel, a veteran of just such a town in southern Ohio, and the strong cast, were able to bring such authenticity and development of mood in under 90 minutes of filmmaking. Credit here, again, to Riegel for her tight script and the editing skills of Kate Hickey. These are some talented women working in the movie industry who hopefully will keep producing films of such quality for many years to come. The performances of Halpert, Adlon, Amelio and Baker are all strong. These are people we believe in, maybe people we know. The veterans Baker and Adlon bring a lot of years worth of quality work as many different people into the characters of Linda and Rhonda. We pull for both of them. But this is young Jessica Barden's movie, start to finish. From the opening scene of her running desperately with snagged bags of aluminum, to the end, this is Ruth's story most of all. A great many movies/directors try to bring these kinds of story lines to life; the struggles of blue-collar workers in a world where technology and corporatism use them then lose them. There's the kids divided between leaving for the promise of more or staying home in the only life they've ever known with the family they love. But so often, they show some empathy for the weight of such struggle, but not the weight itself. Riegel does not fail to bring it all to the show. 3.9 stars

Enjoyed the movie, just wish that there was a little bit more to the ending.

A great movie with real grit and authenticity. Hope to see more of Jessica Barden soon!

Saw this movie in Columbus Ohio. It was great seeing some familiar faces and locations near where I grew up. An amazingly compassionate film, I loved it!

Had to balance out JD Vance's review below.

It's like Hillbilly Elegy only written by people with no connection to nor understanding of the subject matter.

In the time I have spent making a concerted effort at reviewing Ohio-made indie movies, I have yet to watch one that amazed me and earned an A-grade. There are several that are enjoyable, others admirable for their technical professionalism, and many that have glaring factors beyond limited budgets that hold back whatever the intended artistic intent was. I was excited with genuine hope for Holler, a small movie shot entirely in Jackson, Ohio and following the lives of a struggling band of small-town metal scrappers looking to survive. It's the debut feature from writer/director Nicole Riegel (based upon her 2016 short film of the same name) and has recognizable 온라인카지노추천 actors involved like Jessica Barden (End of the F***ing World), Pamela Adlon (Better Things), Austen Amelio (Dwight from The Walking Dead) and Becky Ann Baker (Girls, Freaks and Geeks). It's even getting a wide release nationwide through IFC Films, who graciously provided me a screener link. If any movie felt like it was going to breakthrough and become the first truly outstanding Ohio indie, this seemed like a major possibility. Unfortunately, Holler doesn't merit hollering. Ruth (Barden) is a high school senior in a small southern Ohio town wracked by poverty, factory closures, and the aftereffects of the opioid epidemic. Her mother (Adlon) is serving time in prison for her drug offenses when she should be in a treatment center. Her older brother Blaze (Gus Halper) is resigned that he'll work himself to nothing, but he wants a better life for his bright sister and submitted her college application. Ruth and her brother join Hank (Amelio), a local scrapper who offers extra work for side projects stripping the parts from closed buildings. While watching Holler, I noticed my heart was sinking because, even with all this professionalism and authenticity on board, I kept waiting for the actual movie to kick in, and then I noticed an hour had passed and I realized, "Oh, this is the movie." I have seen this artistic calculation with indie movies before and articulated it succinctly with 2012's Beasts of the Southern Wild: "sacrificing story to the altar of realism." This feels like a very authentic movie as far as its hardscrabble details about how impoverished people in small towns eke out a life on the peripheral of society. I know people have been pushed to the brink because of desperation, whether economic or psychotropic or beyond, and that scrapping can be a dangerous and competitive landscape to make a few bucks. When you're struggling to get by, it's all about what can lighten that struggle. If stripping the copper wire out of an abandoned building is more profitable, and less time-consuming, than bagging aluminum cans all over town, then it seems like a natural attraction to those with limited options. However, Holler feels less like a movie with a story needing to be told than a stark setting with an impression to leave. The characters are too interchangeable and one-dimensional here to really invest in beyond general well-wishing. These small-town Ohioans have been hit hard by circumstances and as I was watching I wanted them to find some degree of happiness or improvement by the end, but that was because they were simply people in need and I am an empathetic creature and not because of their personal stories or characterization. It would be the same as if I had watched 90 minutes of a lost puppy trying to find shelter and then, at long last, that puppy got to sleep inside a coffee shop. I'm happy, and relieved on a general level, but am I personally invested in this specific animal and this specific story? Could it have been any living being at all? The characters of Holler are far too generalized where they keep repeating that same nub of characterization they've been given. The entire dynamic seems to be a universe of characters who exist to try and convince Ruth that she is better than everyone and deserves to leave. In an early scene, we watch Ruth sit down and write an essay for a friend to use as her own homework. It's an early indication that Ruth is smart and not fulfilling her potential. It's not her homework she's completing but a friend's and for money, money she initially refuses from pride. Unfortunately, the movie forgets to continue moments like this to provide further insights. Ruth is too often a walking cipher, taking in her dilapidated surroundings with alternating pensive and glum stares. She is more a symbol than a character, meant to serve as a face of those held back by economic anxieties and limited opportunities. Her mother is a symbol of the wreckage of the opioid crisis and how it has decimated rural communities. Her brother is a symbol of generational sacrifice. These characters don't have complicated internal drama or intriguing contradictions or anything beyond the surface description because they're designed to be specific voices meant to convey a Greek chorus of opinion. They're sides of conversations made flesh rather than interesting or complex people. I wanted to become attached to Ruth's plight especially as she embarks on performing more dangerous tasks for money with her scrap crew, but you never feel any real added danger or for that matter any real change. When Ruth is out scrapping in the middle of the night, the movie treats it no differently. When Ruth finally makes her decision about her life, it doesn't feel like the culmination of her emotional journey and more so the character finally accepting the pleas of others over the course of 85 minutes. The obvious artistic comparison point for Holler is 2010's Winter's Bone, another movie that explored in unflinching detail the degenerative disease of systemic poverty. Once again, we follow a young woman trying to provide for her broken family in the wake of a parental drug addiction and trying to stay one step ahead of debt collectors and eviction. Another artistic influence seems to be 1970's Wanda, an indie featuring a housewife walking away from the malaise of her life in small-town coal country Pennsylvania. The difference with both chief artistic influences is that they had, quite simply, movies to tell with their big screen canvas. With Winter's Bone, there's an urgency where the protagonist has to find her absent father in short order to save her family home but also because he has made some very scary meth dealers very angry, so the way to save her family is literally to turn over the man who abandoned them to ruin. There's a strong sense of personal stakes, there's a ticking clock, and the themes tie into the emotional journey of our main character. With Wanda, the main character is the one abandoning her husband and children and she takes refuge with a bank robber on the run. With each of those descriptions, you can see the movie there, the reason why this story deserves your time. With Holler, I kept waiting for some turn or escalation or something to draw out the movie. The movie feels stuck in an expository gear I would associate with Act One territory and then it ends. I really thought more would be made of the illegal scrapping-for-money angle and whether this would present our lead character with increasingly fraught choices over her well-being. I thought maybe her descent into the criminal side of desperation would force more confrontations or consequences. Maybe there would be another crew that didn't take too kindly to an entrepreneur muscling in on their hard-won turf. Maybe she would have to hide her injuries as she got more reckless. Maybe she'd even risk getting caught by the law and serving time in prison. Anything to offer insight into this less known world of scrapping. I regret to say that the angle that gives this low-budget indie its very hook could have been replaced with any other arbitrary plot element. Ruth could have been finding lost dogs or stealing cars or selling her bath water to perverts on the Internet. The circumstances of her personal choices are so generalized and don't produce enough direct cause-effect relationships. The events fail to feel meaningful. The solution to Ruth's dilemma also seems as generalized – go to college. What is she going to study? Does she have a career in mind? Does she even have personal interests? She rejects one teacher's recommendation to avoid a crushing load of student debt and to learn a skill and work up, so then what is she going to do with tens of thousands of dollars in debt attached to her name? I understand that education is aspirational and one of the few things in life that, once gained, cannot be taken away, and I champion education as a person working within that sphere. However, "get out of economic desperation by just going to college" seems naively simplistic. Holler is admirable for its grit and empathetic with the struggles of its people. It's professionally made with a strong score by Gene Beck (Cowboys), all mournful strings applied to lived-in details that feel authentic to the region and these inhabitants. Even the angle of scrapping-for-money seems ripe for exploration to separate this little movie from the pack of poverty pictures. It's the storytelling that cannot live up to the good intentions of those involved. The characters are too one-note, symbolic, and disposable, and the story elements are likewise too interchangeable and lacking in meaningful connections. It's a small-town girl who must decide to leave home to take on massive student debt (happy ending?). Anything that happens in the prior 85 minutes feels like variations on the same point being made repeatedly and without nuance or complication or contrast. It feels less like a movie and more like an expanded short absent the substance to justify its expansion. I think Riegel has promise as a filmmaker and I hope more attention goes to her characters and plot for future projects. I must continue to wait once again for that elusive Ohio-made amazing indie. Nate's Grade: C+

Subtle and poignant, the film approaches the very real internal battle between staying for the people you cherish and finding a way to claw your way out of life below the poverty line by any means necessary with compassion. Worth seeing for the spectacular performances of the cast alone. However, I feel that many people will see themselves or loved ones experiences portrayed in this film.

Really poignant film that got to me. Was not expecting it AT ALL.

I enjoyed this. A very powerful performance from Jessica Barden!

I'm wondering if this film was subsidized by the Ohio Film Commission? Seems doubtful. The movie could have been called, "Escape from Ohio." It certainly depicts Ohio in a very bleak light. Nonetheless, I found it to be a well-acted, thoughtful and engaging film. Here's hoping everyone in the White House watches this. Actually, everyone in government should watch this.

In someway Holler feels like just a part of a complete movie, but it's easily covered by the bleak, thoughtful theme and strong performance form Barden.