disappointment media
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • The Snake Hole
  • About

THE JUSTICE OF BUNNY KING -- A Well-Intentioned Portrait of a Mother in Crisis

9/23/2022

0 Comments

 
Review by Camden Ferrell
Picture
The Justice of Bunny King is a drama film that had its premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and has played several festivals leading up to its release in theaters and on demand. This movie also marks the feature directorial debut of Gaysorn Thavat with a screenplay by Sophie Henderson who most recently wrote the delightful comedy Baby Done. Even though this movie is made with the best intentions and features a great leading performance, it loses its way in its final act which ultimately leads this movie to being decent but not great.
 
Bunny King is a woman with a sketchy past that led to her losing custody of her two children. A diamond in the rough, she works at traffic lights, cleaning people’s windshields as she tries to make money to get her life back on track. She is trying to get custody of her kids back, but she finds navigating the world as someone in her situation and dealing with child services are obstacles that are difficult to overcome. Accompanied by her niece, Bunny embarks on a journey to confront the system that keeps her children away. This story has a strong emotional core with a flawed yet empathetic character that we can root for as an audience.
 
The script does a decent enough job at establishing its characters and making them relatable. Bunny may be a bit eccentric, but the movie doesn’t lose sight of her human qualities and traits. However, it does have a difficult time with crafting compelling and engaging dialogue outside of its few confrontational moments. This makes it difficult to be fully invested in her journey and the people who help or deter her along the way. 
Picture
Essie Davis gives a great lead performance as Bunny which brings a lot of life to the character while making up for some of its shortcomings. She knows how to play this flawed character in a way that is sad yet elicits sympathy from its audience. The character has made mistakes and does impulsively inappropriate things, but we know her heart is in the right place. She is joined by Thomasin McKenzie who plays her niece, and she is quite forgettable in this role and doesn’t really do much to elevate the scenes she is in.
 
The biggest flaw of the movie is the narrative leaps it makes in its final act. It no longer is an intimate and frustrating portrait of a mother in crisis; it evolves into something that feels beyond its reach. The final act might work with a different movie with higher stakes, but it feels out of place in a movie like this. Ultimately, the movie trades in its intimate stakes and heartbreaking conflict in exchange for some high stakes drama that don’t fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.
 
The Justice of Bunny King is an empathetic movie that is certainly made with the best of intentions, but it doesn’t always hit the mark in terms of execution. Essie Davis is great, and it has a few great moments, but as a whole, it doesn’t work as well as it could have.
 
The Justice of Bunny King is in theaters September 23 and on demand September 30.

Rating: 3/5
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019

    Authors

    All
    Adam Donato
    Alan French
    Allison Brown
    Borja Izuzquiz
    Camden Ferrell
    Cole Groth
    Daniel Lima
    Dan Skip Allen
    Erin M. Brady
    Jonathan Berk
    Joseph Fayed
    Josh Batchelder
    Paris Jade
    Rafael Motamayor
    Sarah Williams
    Sean Boelman
    Tatiana Miranda

disappointment media

Dedicated to unique and diverse perspectives on cinema!
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • The Snake Hole
  • About