I reviewed Tow, based on a true story, starring Rose Byrne, for Ebert. I liked writing this.
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I’ve lived in and around Seattle for 20 + years, so this feels very real. Thank you for writing this, as well as linking to updated Westneat article. It’s moving, depressing, and uplifting all at the same time. I have a ton of admiration for the battle waged by the real Amanda Ogle and I am also imagining her as this totally real, totally messy person who could live down the street from me. The connection between film and reality is so strange. Film stays static- the story preserved in amber. The people who made it, and who it is about, move, change, age, die. This is on my watch list. Thank you.
// The connection between film and reality is so strange. //
It’s so true. I read the original article of course and quickly found the update from this week. It sound slike she’s doing better – or at least in subsidized housing but … like you say, life moves on and it’s a mess, either way.
She sounds like a real character. She basically studied all these court cases to find loopholes to attack the tow company’s behavior – she’s huddled over in the shelter, highlighting things with her pink pen. and then she’d go to her poor harassed lawyer saying “what about so and so vs. so and so … there might be something there …”
so it’s Erin Brockovich without the “here’s a million dollar bonus check” at the end. (and I love Erin Brockovich).
I am so impressed with Westneat too – he really knows how to write and report and put together a narrative. That first article is so good – starting with Amanda but then moving out into the problem with these tow companies and this particular tow company – their unethical practices – how it set up this sister company and blah blah – like there was some real reporting there that would have real everyday value to the people in that community. Shining light on a bad actor in the towing world – which we all have to deal with.