Movie Review: Blood on Her Name

Blood on Her Name *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Matthew Pope.

Written by: Don M. Thompson & Matthew Pope.

Starring: Bethany Anne Lind (Leigh Tiller), Will Patton (Richard Tiller), Elisabeth Röhm (Dani Wilson), Jared Ivers (Ryan Tiller), Jimmy Gonzales (Reynoso Dias), Jack Andrews (Travis), Chandler Head (Young Leigh), Tony Vaughn (Nathan Parrish), Joshua Mikel (Reed).

 

Blood on Her Name is a classically structured, old school noir – where a normal person makes one bad mistake, then ends up compounding that mistake with others, although based on good intentions. Leigh (Bethany Anne Lind) is not a bad person – she is trying to raise her teenage son, who has already had issues with the law, by herself after her husband was arrested and sent to jail for running stolen cars out of their repair shop, Now, the business is struggling and she is just trying to survive. We meet her when the first mistake has already been made – a man is lying on the floor of the repair shop, dead, blood pouring out of his skull that has been bashed in my wrench. Her son, Ryan (Jared Ivers) saw the man at least – but she is trying to pass it off as a random break-in – just some junkie, looking to score some money. We get the sense however that this isn’t the whole story – and over the course of Blood on Her Name, that story will come out.

 

In many ways, Blood on Her Name would feel at home with any number of noirs from the 1940s – except, of course, it wouldn’t be a female at the center of the narrative. But Leigh has a lot in common with those noir protagonists – normal people who get themselves in over their heads, and then cannot get out of it. If she was a worse person, she’d probably be okay. But she has a conscience – and when looking at the dead man’s phone, right before she intends to dump him in a swamp, from which he probably won’t be discovered,  she sees message from the man’s son – and decides she cannot let his people wonder what happened to him for the rest of their lives. Her act of “kindness” is to leave the dead man in his family’s shed – where at least they’ll know what happened to him. That, of course, turns out to be a massive mistake. And the noose starts to tighten.

 

Blood on Her Name doesn’t do anything particularly new or novel in its narrative. It is a film about this normal woman, who gets in over her head, and cannot find a way out – each action rippling with more consequences that she didn’t foresee coming when she does them. It is a small-town film – but not quite one of those small towns where everyone knows everyone. This is one where people keep to themselves – and don’t want to get involved. It is a film full of rundown buildings, trailer parks, seedy motels, and ramshackle homes. There is a certain degree of class here – but the “haves” and the “have-nots” aren’t very far apart. The only cop in the film, played by Will Patton, is Leigh’s father – and their past indicates perhaps just why there are lines she will not cross, even if logically speaking, she should. He seems representative of the type of cops they have in this town – ones that don’t seem to try very hard to solve crimes, if the victim isn’t someone they care about.

 

Lind holds the movie together with her excellent performance as Leigh – who more than anything, just comes across as tired. This is writer/director Matthew Pope’s directorial debut – and he’s smart with it. He doesn’t try to do too much, doesn’t try and push things too far. He gets the feeling of this town right, of these people – desperate people doing what they can to get by. This is when mistakes are made.