This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2014)
Set in the late 1970s, Christina (Paquin) is a single mother from Ohio who escapes her abusive partner, along with her two daughters; teenaged MJ (Liberato) and seven-year-old Shell (Acres). She moves to the Florida coast where she meets up with a friend (De Matteo) who gets her a job in drug smuggling. But Christina must meet the challenges of protecting and providing for her children, with her oldest daughter being more defiant and the hazards of her occupation.[3]
Free Ride had a limited theatrical release on 10 January 2014.[7]
Reaction
Awards
For directing Free Ride, the inaugural Tangerine Entertainment Juice Award (honoring an outstanding female filmmaker) was given to Shana Betz at the 2013 Hamptons International Film Festival.[8][9]
Critical response
Free Ride has received negative reviews. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 14% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 7 reviews, with an average score of 3.9/10.[1] On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 41 based on 9 reviews, considered to be "mixed or average".[10]
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, John DeFore said the film was "[a] loving portrait of a mother many would say deserves a much more critical eye".[11]
Stephen Holden of The New York Times writes that "[f]rom top to bottom, [the story] feels authentic, and its laid-back, nonjudgmental tone evokes the easygoing world of Jimmy Buffett songs celebrating how changes in latitude bring changes in attitude. Much of the movie seems bathed in the pink-grapefruit haze of a Florida sunset. [...] Free Ride offers an unsettling vision of a demimonde whose inhabitants live with the reality that there may be no tomorrow."[12]
Diego Costa of Slant Magazine gave the film two out of four stars, and commented that "Paquin's believable performance keeps the all-too-neat narrative from completely surrendering to cheesy melodrama, and Betz's script is refreshingly devoid of embellishment or poetic ambition. But the filmmaker's too-insistent refusal to commit to the melodramatic or to the suspenseful only makes Free Ride seem like empty dramatization in the end."[13]
Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News gave the film two out of five stars, commenting that Betz was "unable to do the story justice as either a writer or director. [...] While this true-life odyssey should be the basis for a compelling drama or even a taut thriller, slack direction and a weak screenplay undermine the plot’s inherent tension." Weitzman thought Paquin was miscast and "never settles into the role."[14]
