By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Cast: Kate Mara, Tom Felton, Ramón Rodríguez, Bradley Whitford, Common, Geraldine James, Will Patton and Edie Falco.
Rating: Very Good.
Gabriela Cowperthwaite, director of the documentary “Blackfish” brings “Megan Leavey”, her most ambitious project till this day and I was very pleased with this movie.
Based on true events, the movie tells the story of Megan Leavey (Kate Mara) an Upstate New York girl who is bored with her life and decides to join the United States Army to become a Marine.
While she´s on the Marine Corp she will meet with Rex, a German Shepard. whom she will form a special and unique bond.
They are both send to Iraq with the rest of the United States Army and in one event Rex saves Megan´s life and the bond will grow stronger and will lead to Megan´s perseverance and persistence in adopting Rex, making their bond even stronger and Megan will understand what real love means.
When I first saw the trailer for “Megan Leavey” I said to myself not another Lifetime movie but I was wrong like many times and I found it very touching.
Gabriela Cowperthwate´s directing was fantastic and not only was very smart on capturing the moments on Iraq, both also directed in her cast fantastic and moving performances.
The screenplay written by Pamela Gray, Annie Mumulo and Tim Lovestedt was very well written and illustrated a character who had many conflicts in a different level. I love how the writers played with the progressive complications of the character in order to achieve her goal and the bond between Megan Leavey and Rex was really well told.
Some of this movies have the tendency to sometimes over explain things, leading them to boredom but this was not the case. Here we saw only the necessary details which made Megan Leavey a very interesting character and we feel admiration for this brave human being who risked her life for her country.
This is by far the best performance of Kate Mara´s career. She brought to life a messed up character at the beginning and we felt up for her. The chemistry she has with Edie Falco, who portrays her mother Jackie is very well executed and works at all levels.
I have been impressed with women director´s this year. We saw it recently with “Wonder Woman”, which was directed by Patty Jenkins and did a remarkable super hero movie and now Gabriela Cowperthwaite directed another great picture. I think it is admirable to have women directing this days and I am very happy we see more movies like this directed by female directors.
The cinematography, editing and score play a key role in this film since the use of the camera was very well executed and the editing was very sharp and had interesting cuts.
“Megan Leavey” without a doubt is an example of true inspiration and bravery in America and this is a movie that you cannot miss. Indeed you will be moved and touched with this picture.