Manny & Lo Reviews

An offbeat, heartfelt comic drama with enough dark edges to keep sentimentality in check. Manny (Scarlett Johansson), 11, and her older, pregnant sister Lo (Aleska Palladino), reunited and on the run after going AWOL from their separate foster families, are faced with a dilemma: Neither know a thing about giving birth, and a trip to hospital would surely end back in child welfare. One day, while scoping out a maternity boutique, the sisters spot Elaine (Mary Kay Place), a lonely, middle-aged spinster with a seemingly boundless knowledge of birthing. What else to do but kidnap her at gunpoint? With her cream of mushroom hot dishes and homespun wisdom straight off a needlepoint sampler, Elaine is just the kind of character that could easily slide into camp Americana. But Place is brilliant here, and it's her terrifically controlled performance that lends the film its considerable poignancy.