Holler

audience Reviews

, 75% Audience Score
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    Brilliantly understated, the viewer gets to feel like a voyeur in this rich slice of life film.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    Really good. Winter's Bone light.
  • Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
    Authentic and genuine in both look and portrayals that don't try and patronize the audience or whine about anything so.... those are positives.
  • Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
    The acting made it for me.
  • Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
    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
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    Fantastic, heartwarming Anything John Krasinski directs is magnificent
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    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
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    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).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    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
  • Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
    Enjoyed the movie, just wish that there was a little bit more to the ending.