Jessica Sula Archives – CULTURE MIX

December 27, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jess Weixler, Chloe Guidry and Jessica Sula in “Wayward” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Wayward” (2024)

Directed by Jacquelyn Frohlich

Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the dramatic film “Wayward” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An 11-year-old girl gets kidnapped during a road trip with her single mother, and the girl ends up emotionally bonding with her young female kidnapper.

Culture Audience: “Wayward” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing a well-acted kidnapping drama that has some predictability but is overall appealing.

Chloe Guidry and Will Brittain in “Wayward” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“Wayward” has moments that will frustrate some viewers because of how certain adults make stupid or unrealistic decisions in the story. However, this drama about a kidnapped 11-year-old girl is at its best when it’s about healing from family turmoil. The movie’s quality and tone fall somewhere in between the types of movies on Independent Film Channel and Lifetime.

“Wayward” is the feature-film directorial debut of writer/director Jacquelyn Frohlich. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Deauville Film Festival in France. Much of the movie is about a road trip where an 11-year-old girl is kidnapped but would rather spend time with her kidnapper than with her single mother. In fact, the movie’s very first scene shows the 11-year-old girl, whose name is Cleo (played by Chloe Guidry), trying to run away from her mother Arlene (played by Jess Weixler) on this road trip.

Arlene catches up to Cleo and makes her get her back in the car. Why is Cleo so unhappy? Arlene and Cleo are moving from Boise, Idaho, to Sherman Oaks, California, because Arlene is getting married to a rich guy named Larry Gilbert (played by Rob Morrow), whom Arlene has known for only one month. (Larry and Arlene met online.) Later in the movie, Cleo mentions that she and Arlene have moved eight times so far in Cleo’s life.

At a convenience store parking lot, Arlene and Cleo encounter aspiring singer Orbison Miley Marks (played by Jessica Sula), who is in her 20s and down on her luck. Orbison says she needs a ride to San Francisco. Orbison seems very friendly and immediately establishes a rapport with Cleo, who is intrigued by this charming stranger with an acoustic guitar.

Arlene seems grateful to have someone on this road trip who can cheer up mopey Cleo, so Arlene accepts Orbison’s request for a ride to San Francisco. But during another stop on the trip, Arlene catches Orbison teaching Cleo how to smoke a cigarette. Arlene is enraged and tells Orbison that Orbison can no longer travel with them.

However, when Arlene sees how sadly Cleo hugs Orbison goodbye, Arlene changes her mind and reluctantly lets Orbison continue on the trip with them. Arlene allows Orbison to share the motel room that Arlene is staying at with Cleo. Arlene (who is obviously impulsive, flaky and less-than-smart) also shows Orbison the wad of $10,000 cash that Arlene has for this road trip.

It doesn’t take long for Arlene to tell Orbison about why Arlene and Cleo are on this road trip. Cleo chimes in by saying this about Arlene and Larry: “She only likes him because he’s rich.” And faster than you can saying “scheming opportunist in a kidnapping movie,” Orbison convinces Arlene to let Orbison take care of Cleo for a few hours while Arlene can have some time to herself.

The trailer for “Wayward” already reveals that while Orbison and Cleo are outside of the hotel room, Orbison takes Cleo for a kidnapping scheme. Orbison’s accomplice is her sleazy boyfriend Frank (played by Will Brittain), who has obviously committed crimes before with Orbison. However, Orbison and Frank are inexperienced kidnappers. This kidnapping was not something they planned in advance.

The kidnappers order Arlene not to notify law enforcement, or else Cleo will be killed. Arlene tells her fiancé Larry, who advises her not to report this kidnapping. At first, the kidnappers ask for $10,000, because they know Arlene has this cash on hand. But then, when the kidnappers figure out that Larry knows about the kidnapping, they increase the ransom demand to $150,000. (This information is also revealed in the movie’s trailer.)

“Wayward” is not a suspense thriller because the movie’s unusual concept is that Cleo is a kidnapping victim who is not only unafraid of her kidnapper, Cleo would also rather spend time with Orbison than with Arlene. Orbison (who treats Cleo like a younger sister) isn’t exactly doing much to hide Cleo while Orbison and Frank are “on the run” with Cleo in Frank’s car. The most that Orbison does to disguise Cleo is have her wear a very cheap-looking long blonde wig.

Cleo doesn’t seem to think about what this kidnapping is doing to Arlene. As Cleo admits to Orbison: “I just want her to miss me.” Cleo estimates it would be about three or four days before Arlene will miss Cleo. Viewers see that Cleo is wrong about that because Arlene is immediately frantic about finding Cleo, even if Arlene makes some incredibly moronic decisions.

And what is Orbison’s story? This review won’t give away too many details. But it’s enough to say that Cleo finds out that Orbison has had her own troubled relationship with her own single mother, including running away from home. Does this make Orbison more sympathetic? Not really, but it’s a psychological insight into why Orbison and Cleo bonded so quickly after they first met because they are both restless kindred spirits with complicated feelings about their respective mothers.

The movie has a subplot about Orbison and Frank visiting Frank’s religious older sister Bertie (played by Jamie Anne Allman) to ask her for a favor. Cleo is with the couple during this visit, which is the first time that Bertie meets Orbison. Orbison pretends that Cleo is her daughter and then tells another lie to Bertie by saying that she took Cleo in a custody battle with Cleo’s father.

“Wayward” doesn’t try to make this kidnapping look cute, but the movie does have a tendency to gloss over the seriousness of this crime with “cutesy” moments between Cleo and Orbison. From Cleo’s perspective, she doesn’t feel like Orbison is a dangerous threat. However, Frank is much more volatile and unpredictable. He is the “wild card” in a story that is otherwise a little formulaic.

All of the cast members capably handle their roles. However, the appeal of the movie rests almost entirely on how believable Cleo’s feelings are about Arlene and Orbison. Guidry has compelling talent in her performance as troubled Cleo, while Sula is able to convincingly portray someone who is both deceptive and candid. Weixler and Brittain portray their characters in expected ways.

“Wayward” has some predictability in what you might expect Orbison to do while on ths road trip with Cleo. (For example, there are scenes of Cleo and Orbison shopping for clothes together and Orbison putting makeup on Cleo.) Although some of the storytelling in “Wayward” falters with pointless scenes, viewers with enough life experience will appreciate how “Wayward” shows that Cleo’s kidnapping isn’t just about how much Cleo’s mother misses her but also about how Cleo is surprised by how much she misses her mother.

Abramorama released “Wayward” in Los Angeles on November 15, 2024, and in New York City on November 22, 2024.

April 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jessica Sula in “Malum” (Photo courtesy of Welcome Villain Films)

“Malum” (2023)

Directed by Anthony DiBlasi

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of Lanford, the horror film “Malum” (a reimagining of the 2015 horror film “Last Shift”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A rookie police officer with a tragic family background is assigned to be the only cop on duty during the last shift of a decommissioned police station that appears to be haunted.

Culture Audience: “Malum” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “Last Shift” and horror movies about cults and prisons.

“Malum” is not very original, it can get repetitive, and some of the acting is amateurish from the supporting cast members. However, the movie excels at some terrific horror visuals, and the lead performances carry the movie during its weaker moments. “Malum” is a slightly inferior reimagining of the horror movie “Last Shift,” which was released in 2015. The ending of “Malum” is much more predictable than “Last Shift,” but there are unique jump scares and story elements in “Malum” that are improvements from “Last Shift.”

“Malum” and “Last Shift” were both directed by Anthony DiBlasi and written by DiBlasi and Scott Poiley. Both movies have the same concept: a rookie female cop is working the last shift inside a decommissioned prison that is haunted. However, certain aspects of both movies are different from each other. In “Malum” (which takes place in the fictional U.S. city of Lanford), the rookie cop has the same name as the “Last Shift” rookie cop: Jessica Loren. In “Malum,” Jessica Loren is played by Jessica Sula.

“Last Shift” begins with a “found footage” scene of a Charles Manson-like cult murdering young women who have been kidnapped. Viewers later find out that this was a cult known as the Farm Cult, who lived on a remote farm. The cult’s leader was a sadistic maniac named John Malum (played by Chaney Morrow), who was arrested for the murders, along with several other members of the cult.

The police officer who led this group arrest of the Farm Cult was 52-year-old Captain Will Loren (played by Eric Olson), who is hailed as a local hero. But in the beginning of the movie, Will is shown at the Lanford Police Department committing a heinous crime: He murders two other police officers with a shotgun before using the same shotgun to committ suicide.

One year later, Will’s daughter Jessica is shown visiting Will’s grave. Someone shows up at the graveyard who is an unwelcome visitor to Jessica: her mother Diane (played by Candice Coke), who is very unhappy that Jessica has decided to become a police officer. Jessica and Diane have an argument over her career choice and other issues that have been going on longer than before Will died. Diane is an alcoholic, and Jessica (who calls Diane by her first name) blames Diane for Jessica’s unhappy childhood.

Jessica’s very first night shift job as a police officer is to work the very last shift at the decommissioned Lanford Police Department station. A new Lanford Police Department station has already been built and is open. It’s where almost all of the Lanford Police Department staff works. On this particular night, members of the Farm Cult who weren’t arrested have been wreaking havoc around the city, so members of the Lanford Police Department have been busy responding to the chaos.

Before Jessica begins her shift at the decommissioned police station, she gets a very hostile reaction from police officer Grip Cohen (played by Britt George), who is the only other cop in the station when she arrives to take over the work shift. Before he leaves for the night, Grip yells and curses at Jessica, in an attempt to intimidate her. He gets even angrier when he finds out that she is Will’s daughter. Grip asks Jessica what she’s doing working at this police department, and she says she just wants to work as a cop.

The rest of “Malum” shows Jessica having strange and terrifying encounters at the police station. She think she’s alone in the building. But is she really alone? And through it all, Jessica keeps getting harassing phone calls from women who seem to be members of the Farm Cult, because they keep using the Farm Cult’s names for a police officer: “pig” or “piggy.” Eventually, Jessica looks through her father’s former locker and finds something that helps solve some of the lingering mysteries that have haunted her and other people in Lanford.

One of the biggest questions that viewers ask whenever there’s a horror movie about a person or people getting attacked in a haunted place is: “Why don’t they just leave?” In “Malum,” the reason why Jessica stays is because she is determined to prove to people like Grip that she has what it takes to be a brave police officer. She also knows that several people want her to quit the police department, because of what her father did, and she does not want to give her naysayers the satisfaction of having her quit.

Jessica does not excuse the murders that her father committed, but she wholeheartedly believes that there could be a sinister explanation for why he did what he did, since he had no previous indications of ever being mentally ill or inclined to murder. The revelations in “Malum” aren’t too surprising. And the repetition of Jessica seeing terrifying visions and getting threatening phone calls can get a little tedious. However, Sula gives a very compelling performance that makes “Malum” an effective horror thriller for viewers who have the tolerance to see gruesome, blood-drenched scenes.

Welcome Villain Films released “Malum” in select U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 16, 2023.

Tag: Jessica Sula

Review: ‘Wayward’ (2024), starring Jess Weixler, Jessica Sula, Chloe Guidry, Will Brittain, Jamie Anne Allman and Rob Morrow

Review: ‘Malum’ (2023), starring Jessica Sula, Eric Olson, Chaney Morrow and Candice Coke