Lou (2022)

Written by Peter McGinn on October 28, 2022

I don’t watch thrillers as a rule, so I will not try to compare it to others in that genre. I gave this a try only because of Allison Janney, who first impressed me in West Wing and later in Mom. Of course, this is a different breed of character for her altogether.

In a few ways the movie stuck close to the formula of the restrictive thriller genre: the supervillain who is always one step ahead until near the end, the fight scenes where any one blow would knock out a real person, scenes from the past filling in where character development leaves off, and plot twists I could see coming yards away. But the movie had a couple of surprises for me, the body count wasn’t as high as usual, and Janney put in her usual strong performance, so I stayed with it until the end, as did my wife, who enjoys thrillers even less than I do. So I guess that speaks volumes for Lou in the end.