BFI Flare
MOVIE REVIEW
Jump, Darling (2021)
Oscar Wilde once said that no man becomes like his mother, which is his tragedy. But what writer-director Phil Connell’s film presupposes, what if he becomes like his grandmother?
Russell (Thomas Duplessie) is a resting actor who refuses to work more than one shift a week in a Toronto drag bar called Peckers (devastatingly, this is not a real place). On his 31st birthday he receives a card from his grandmother Margaret (Cloris Leachman, in one of her final roles) offering him her car if he comes to Prince Edward Island to collect it. So when his partner Justin (Andrew Bushell) calls him an embarrassment and dumps him, Russell takes his last money and shows up on Margaret’s doorstep. Russell loses little time in writing himself a large check from his grandmother’s checkbook, but a mishap with the car shortly followed by a mishap of Margaret’s means he decides to stay with her a while.