Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Bryan Poyser
Starring: Heather Kafka, Justin Arnold, Macon Blair, Sara Paxton, Aaliyah Tardio, Wade Smith, Yesenia Garcia Herrington
Writer/director Bryan Poyser's third feature Leads has a central premise that might be dismissed as an American indie cliché, that of a stressed-out single mother receiving an impromptu visit from her free-wheeling brother. But while we've seen this idea explored before, this is the best version of this narrative since Kenneth Lonergan laid down the template a quarter century ago with You Can Count on Me.
The stressed-out single mother here is Mags (Heather Kafka, who co-write the script with Poyser and co-star Justin Arnold), an actress who has largely given up her profession to teach drama classes at a Texan college. Saddled with debt from a failed attempt to direct her own movie several years ago, Mags has been left to raise her seven-year-old daughter Jo alone; the child's father, a fellow actor, having long exited stage left. After a Sundance-winning debut over a decade ago, her director, Taylor Betts (Macon Blair), has failed to cast her in any of his subsequent projects. But out of misplaced loyalty, Mags has arranged to fly Betts to deliver a lecture at her school, which she may have to fund out of her own empty pocket. She's also mentally dealing with her confused feelings for one of her young students, with whom she shared an intimate moment that may or may not have crossed the line from performance art to something more inappropriate.
Mags could certainly use some help, but the last person she wants it from is her ramshackle younger brother Merritt (co-writer Arnold), who drifts from town to town and job to job like a cowboy, usually leaving trouble in his wake. Mags doesn't interrogate Merritt over why his arm is in a sling as she knows he wouldn't give her a truthful answer and she probably wouldn't like it if he did. She knows her brother will bring trouble but he has an undeniable charm that breaks down her defences, plus Jo loves the big lug, so Mags lets him stay for a couple of weeks.
With nothing else to occupy his time, Merritt decides to temporarily enrol himself in his sister's acting class. Mags agrees, expecting to have some fun humiliating her bother. But to Mags' surprise and horror, Merritt turns out to have quite the natural gift for acting. His fellow students instantly warm to him, especially when he treats them to a night of underage drinking. Mags' class is soon overtaken by her brother's whirlwind force, and as she struggles to wrestle back control she cruelly uses acting exercises to raise issues between the siblings that have been long suppressed.
Where Leads deviates from the traditional take on this sort of sibling drama is how the conflict between this estranged brother and sister doesn't take the form of immediate hostility that will gradually be broken down over the course of the movie, but rather the opposite. Despite his reputation for leaving a mess behind, Mags is happy to see her brother. It's professional jealousy that drives a wedge between them, and Mags really loses her cool when Betts offers Merritt a role in his latest movie while continuing to neglect Mags ("I don't want to cast you as old whore number one"). But Leads plays to type in how Merritt's easy-going presence eventually brings the tightly-wound Mags out of her shell, allowing her to stand up for herself in a late scene that will play like vicarious wish fulfilment for many in the audience.
The coding of Merritt as a singing cowboy (Arnold wrote the country songs his character performs here) makes Leads a descendant of westerns like Shane and The Hired Hand, where cowboys with troubled pasts ride into town to help single mothers before bidding a teary farewell; the difference here is that the sibling setup removes the romantic dynamic of such movies.
Arnold is hilarious as Merritt, who initially seems to be putting on a cowboy act until we realise that it's very much his true self. It's Mags who is living a lie, having allowed herself to fall into the trap of pushing her dreams aside for the sake of practicality. A veteran of minor turns in productions shot in Texas, Kafka shines in her most major role to date, and hopefully this will prove a turning point in her career (no more "old whore" roles). This might be far from the first rodeo for both of Leads' leads, but it feels like we're watching Arnold and Kafka evolve from day players to movie stars in front of our eyes.
