''Free Ride'' is a 2013 American

crime drama film In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

produced by and starring

Anna Paquin Anna Hélène Paquin ( ; born 24 July 1982) is a New Zealand actress. Born in Winnipeg and raised in Wellington, Paquin made her acting debut portraying Flora McGrath in the romantic drama film '' The Piano'' (1993), for which she won the ...

. It was written and directed by Shana Betz (aka Shana Sosin), and is based on her childhood in

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

. The film premiered at the 2013

Hamptons International Film Festival The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October ...

Synopsis

Set in the late 1970s, Christina (Paquin) is a single mother from

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

who escapes her abusive partner, along with her two daughters; teenaged MJ (Liberato) and seven-year-old Shell (Acres). She moves to the

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

coast where she meets up with a friend (De Matteo) who gets her a job in

drug smuggling The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through ...

. 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.

Cast

as Christina * Drea de Matteo as Sandy * Cam Gigandet as Ray *

Liana Liberato Liana Daine Liberato (born August 20, 1995) is an American actress. She played the younger version of the female lead in the 2014 film '' The Best of Me'' and starred in the drama films '' The Last Sin Eater'' (2007) and '' Trust'' (2010), the th ...

as MJ * Yvette Yates as Gia * J. LaRose as DEA *

John Kapelos John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

as Guardian * Brit Morgan as Rain *

Lloyd Owen Richard Marcus Lloyd Owen (born 14 April 1966) is an English actor. Trained at the National Youth Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, he is known for portraying Indiana Jones's father Professor Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. in ...

as The Captain *

Jeff Hephner Jeffrey Lane Hephner (born June 22, 1975) is an American actor, best known for the role of Jeff Clarke, first on the NBC television series '' Chicago Fire'' and then on its sister show, ''Chicago Med''. More recently, he co-starred with Jennifer ...

as Bossman *

Ava Acres Ava Acres (born May 13, 2004) is an American actress. She played young Regina in '' Once Upon a Time'' and also appears in ''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'' as Katya Belyakov, the main antagonist of the episode "Melinda". In addition, she has played ...

as Shell * Kyle T. Heffner as Duane *

Eddie Pepitone Edward David Pepitone (born November 5, 1958) is an American character actor and stand-up comedian. Early life Pepitone was born to a Sicilian father and a Jewish mother in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, and was raised from the age of nine ...

as BK

Production

Filming locations for the film included various sites throughout

Sarasota County, Florida Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Sarasota–Bradenton, FL ...

(including

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

and Englewood).

Release

''Free Ride'' premiered at the 2013

on 11 October 2013. ''Free Ride'' opened the 28th

Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 Unit ...

(FLiFF) on 18 October 2013. ''Free Ride'' had a limited theatrical release on 10 January 2014.

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

Critical response

''Free Ride'' has received negative reviews. Film review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports that 14% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 7 reviews, with an average score of 3.9/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, 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". Writing for ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'', John DeFore said the film was " loving portrait of a mother many would say deserves a much more critical eye". Stephen Holden of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' writes that " om top to bottom, he storyfeels 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 is French for "half-world". The term derives from a play called , by Alexandre Dumas , published in 1855. The play dealt with the way that prostitution at that time threatened the institution of marriage. The was the world occupied by elite me ...

whose inhabitants live with the reality that there may be no tomorrow." 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." 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."

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Free Ride 2013 films 2013 crime drama films 2013 crime thriller films 2013 independent films American crime drama films American crime thriller films American independent films Drama films based on actual events Films about the illegal drug trade Films scored by Jeff Russo Films set in Florida Films shot in Florida Phase 4 Films films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films