Rose Byrne seems to be on a roll playing overwhelmed or unraveling mothers in recent years. She plays a mother of three navigating a mid-life crisis in AppleTV+ series Platonic, and became a first-time Oscar nominee with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. This time around, she takes on the role of a homeless woman in Seattle, who’s estranged from her teenage daughter, inspired by the true story of Amanda Ogle (Byrne).

The film kicks off in the Fall of 2017, with Amanda behind the wheel of her cherished 1991 Toyota Camry, gearing up for her day. It’s a Toyota, so we know it can still run well after 20+ years, but for Amanda, it’s not just a car, it’s her home. Later that day, she tells a job interviewer that she’s hit a rough patch and is working on being a more dependable candidate for employment. She’s also trying to repair her relationship with her estranged daughter, Avery (Elsie Fisher), who’s living with her ex-husband in Utah.

Just when things couldn’t get any more complicated, her car gets stolen. The next day, she manages to locate her Camry, and she’s told that it’ll cost her over $400 to retrieve it from the impound lot. That’s cash she simply doesn’t have, and the fees quickly balloon to over $21,000. Even a court order doesn’t help Amanda’s case.

Directed by Stephanie Laing, based on a script by Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin, Byrne does her best to portray Amanda as a flawed individual down on her luck in a notoriously pricey city, battling an unforgiving system. However, there’s a noticeable disconnect since Byrne’s hair and makeup always look well-coiffed, and she barely has bags under her eyes, despite being frequently disturbed by local cops for sleeping in her car. The inconsistent tone, which often veers towards lighthearted comedy, seems off, given the serious themes being tackled.

Additionally, it’s not immediately obvious that the story takes place in Seattle, as the city appears unusually sunny throughout. I found out that it was actually filmed in New Jersey, specifically in Perth Amboy. It’s typical for indie films not to be filmed on location; it’s just that the production design could do better to boost authenticity. Moreover, there’s a lack of context regarding the economic downturn and homelessness in Seattle that would help ground the story more.

As she navigates the court system, Amanda receives legal support from a kind-hearted young non-profit lawyer named Kevin (Dominic Sessa) and help from a caring mechanic (Simon Rex). At first, Amanda brushes Kevin off, but he’s set on assisting her, even helping her find a spot in a homeless shelter. There, she encounters the shelter’s strong matriarch, Barbara (Octavia Spencer), along with fellow residents Nova (Demi Lovato) and Denise (Ariana DeBose). All these characters feel pretty one-dimensional, existing solely to advance Amanda’s narrative. Predictably, Lovato gets to sing later in the movie, and it’s disheartening to see Spencer and DeBose’s talents completely wasted here. DeBose’s career choices after winning her Oscar in 2022 continue to baffle me.

Although Amanda’s story is a compelling human experience, I question whether it truly deserves a film adaptation. The direction seems to present a series of events rather than a cohesive narrative. The system is depicted as harsh, criminalizing homelessness and further penalizing the impoverished with hefty fines. However, the film does not delve deeply into this issue beyond Amanda’s personal struggles. What could have served as a potent social critique is instead approached by Laing as a sentimental underdog story, filled with narrative clichés and lacking the necessary emotional depth or complexity. The pacing often grinds the movie to a halt, which might symbolize Amanda’s struggle to move forward without her car.

Byrne is a talented actress, and she makes the movie watchable, but I find her character takes a while to warm up to. Her somewhat distant behavior with the folks at the shelter doesn’t exactly endear me to her. The script barely lets us in on who Amanda really is before she experiences all this hardship. What did she do before she found herself homeless? Why does she like to wear pink so much?

A movie’s biggest disservice is when viewers can’t easily connect with the character, leaving us emotionally uninvolved in her journey. It also doesn’t help that some of the characterization is so over-the-top. Corbin Bernsen, famous for playing a sleazy lawyer in the NBC series LA Law in the 80s and 90s, plays a comically villainous attorney for the tow truck company.

In the end, Tow is just a drama that leaves you feeling indifferent when the credits start rolling. It’s a series of unfortunate events that some might call “poverty porn,” trying to tug at your emotions, but the result is neither inspiring nor uplifting. If there’s one thing it does well, it’s promoting Toyota, since that 25-year-old sedan is still as dependable as ever.