Brittany Runs a Marathon Stumbles Visually But Soars Thematically

One of the most interesting parts about Brittany Runs a Marathon is how differently it approaches the topic of changing one's life and habits compared to typical American cinema. The default for depicting personal growth in mainstream filmmaking is typically to use a montage to flash through a character getting their stuff together and changing their life for the better. Now, I love a good montage, but that shouldn't be the only way we depict people tackling the daunting prospect of improving their lives. Brittany Runs a Marathon goes for a different, more realistic approach that emphasizes little steps taken each day add up to change over time, one of a number thoughtful unique traits that can be found in this comedy/drama.


Written and directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo in his feature film debut and based on a true story, Brittany Runs a Marathon is about the titular Brittany (Jillian Bell), whose life is already plagued by self-doubt before she gets told by a doctor that she needs to lose 55 pounds. Brittany thinks the proposition is ridiculous but does begin to take up running to help shed the weight. While running, she starts to not just improve her health, but she also makes some brand new friends, including Seth (Micah Stock) and her landlord Catherine (Michaela Watkins) and begins to rekindle some of her employment ambitions. You might think that wraps up the whole story in a tidy bow, but again, Brittany Runs a Marathon is running a more complex and realistic race than that.

Instead of having the act of engaging in running be a cure-all for Brittany's woes, she eventually goes down a more complex route revolving around her issue of emotionally letting people into her life. Along the way, Colaizzo's script allows Brittany to be as flawed and messy as possible because it'd be mighty unrealistic to show someone going through this kind of introspective process and act like a straight-model Boy Scout. This less straightforward approach to tackling Brittany's own personal issues and her growth as a character is well-executed in the film itself and serves as one of the highlights of both Colaizzo's script and Jillian Bell's lead performance that's equal parts relatably vulnerably and extremely humorous.

Just as memorable as the more complex handling of its protagonist is Brittany Runs a Marathon's aforementioned emphasis on how important it is to just set small daily goals for oneself in the process of self-improvement. This aspect of the story is enhanced by how we don't just see Brittany grappling with this concept but also her seemingly put-together landlord Catherine. In a nice small touch, Catherine has her own storyline going on related to her past as a heroin addict that, on paper, sounds like it shouldn't fit the grounded sensibilities of the production. In execution, however, it serves as a great way to reinforce how Brittany has to learn to let her guard down and allow people into her life, she has to see others around her, like Catherine, as people with their own struggles rather than people who will eventually abandon her.

As a thoughtful study of the difficulties of self-change, Brittany Runs a Marathon is extremely well-thought-out. Its comedy is a little less successful overall, but there's still plenty of gags that do work and I like the recurring comedic bits involving Brittany doing goofy accents to the people around her. That's a very specific piece of behavior that helps to make Brittany feel like a fully-realized person. Perhaps the comedy would have a better track record if the films visual style wasn't so bland. Colaizzo has a handful of interesting ways of visually reflecting Brittany's thought process, namely a recurring motif depicting her flashing back to her very first running session, but too much of the film's camerawork is far less distinctive.

The worst part of the camerawork is easily a bizarrely heavy presence of shaky-cam to film intimate conversation scenes while instances of clumsy editing only compound the issues that make Brittany Runs a Marathon a frequently underwhelming project on a visual level. Luckily, the so-so direction and cinematography aren't what stuck around in my mind most prominently once the film was done. No, what really lingered was Brittany Runs a Marathon's heartfelt attitude towards its lead character and her experiences, not to mention Jillian Bell just knocking a home run in the lead performance as well as some delightful supporting turns from Lil Rel Howery and Utkarsh Ambudkar.