Red Rover Parent Guide

Hapless geologist Damon (Kristian Bruun) has a pretty sad life. Following a nasty breakup, he lives in the basement of the house he and his ex, Beatrice (Meghan Heffern) were leasing - right below her and her new boyfriend Mark (Morgan David Jones). If that weren’t depressing enough, he’s also out of a job. So when Damon sees an ad for a one-way trip to Mars, he pictures an opportunity to start life over. With the help of unusual local musician Phoebe (Cara Gee), Damon starts trying to put together an audition for an escape into space.

This film hasn’t yet been rated by the MPAA, but I can fairly confidently say that if it’s certified, it’s going to be an “R”. There isn’t any explicit sex or violence or drug use, but there are three dozen sexual expletives sprinkled throughout the film which may discourage some viewers and makes the film inappropriate for younger audiences.

But for older rom-com fans who aren’t bothered by profanity, Red Rover is a cute little offering. Damon is both hopeless and earnest enough to be eminently pitiable (which his character absolutely needs to be), and Phoebe is exuberant enough to keep the film from being an hour and half of raw depression. Both actors (Buun and Gee) put in solid work to keep their characters and relationship interesting.

Beyond the quality of the cast, what surprised me was how polished the film looks - little indie movies often have a pretty rough finish. Not so here, and I think less likely to be so going forward. The improvements in affordable digital video technology make it much easier to make something that looks like a big studio production with little more than some determination and a supply run to Best Buy. Where that illusion falls apart tends to be with scripts, but Red Rover’s natural-sounding dialogue and smooth pace mean that, apart from the Canadian setting (a dead giveaway for a smaller production), there is little to indicate that this wasn’t a larger release.

Red Rover plays true to type for a rom-com, and is largely completely predictable, but I don’t think people are watching When Harry Met Sally for the wild twists and turns. It’s not meant to be a thriller, and to an extent, that predictability makes the film somehow comforting. Knowing that there are no huge surprises ahead means you can just relax and zone out a little, although if you zone too far you might miss out on some of the nice little touches.