Mona Lisa (Jeon Jong-seo) has spent the last dozen or so years in a sanitarium - and aparently has developed powers to force her will onto others while locked away, as one day she pretty much wills the personnel to set her free - even if she has to use some retaliatory "persuasion" on some of the orderlies. Once free, she stumbles from one adventure to the next, often having to use her powers to get out of trouble, until she attracts the attention of stripper Bonnie (Kate Hudson), who sees her potential and takes her in. And having little experience when dealing with the outside world, Mona Lisa lets Bonnie use her for her criminal schemes - mostly petty crimes mind you, but enough to attract the attention of Officer Harold (Craig Robinson), who has had a previous run-in with Mona Lisa and now makes it his mission to stop her. Now Bonnie's not very good at obscuring their tracks, however her 10 year old son Charlie (Evan Whitten) has taken an instant liking to Mona Lisa and is somewhat disgusted by his mother taking advantage of her - so when the police are hot on their track, he helps Mona Lisa throw them off their track. But how far can a 10 year old boy and a young woman with little experience in anything get in this world?

Now of course, this isn't the first movie about ESP powers and sure won't be the last, but while the film's premise is movie, comicbook and pulp novel staple, writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour sure finds a novel way to deal with the concept, loading it with in equal parts dark comedy and violence, while grounding it with a story that has enough heart to make this more than a sequence of ESP gags and setpieces, but that never crosses the line to the pure saccharine, thanks to a direction that keeps things moving at a healthy pace and knows to break up scenes with some humour or gruesomeness, and a competent cast that really manage to keep all the madness grounded and that way make the movie work.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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