52 Films by Women Vol 10. 37.5. TOW (Director: Stephanie Laing)

 

Pictured: Displaced vehicular resident Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) shares to a group of addicts, her hand held by group leader, Barbara (Octavia Spencer) in a scene from the Seattle-set fact based drama, 'Tow', written by Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin and directed by Stephanie Laing. Still courtesy of Vertical/Roadside Attractions (US)

How did American director Stephanie Laing expect audiences react to her film, Tow? Insufficiently funny to be a comedy, lacking in sharp edges to be a drama, it relates the fact-based story of ‘vehicular resident’ Amanda Ogle and her attempt to retrieve her car, a 1991 blue Toyota Camry, from a Seattle-based towing company. The cast is stacked: Academy Award nominee Rose Byrne, Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose, Elsie Fisher (from Eighth Grade), Octavia Spencer, Demi Lovato and the fiercely-imposing comedian Lea DeLaria, not to mention Simon Rex (from Red Rocket) and Corbin Bernsen, the latter as a lawyer who never lets his work get in the way of a golf swing. You watch with a mixture of anxiety and irritation. The film doesn’t ask why you need a car to work in America or why there isn’t more support to get trauma-affected women into affordable housing. It announces an objective and delivers a punchline, at the same time avoiding the real issue: Amanda (Byrne) cannot tell her child Avery (Fisher) that she is out of work, homeless and has serious emotional scars.

The early scenes hint at a gritty drama. The camera is trained solely on Byrne’s face as Amanda deflects comments that she is unsuitable for a job caring for pets, primarily because she does not have a college degree. Also, her recent experience is working in a bar; party animals don’t count. Amanda leaves the interview cursing the man’s $200,000 education which only taught him to be insincere; she can manage the same emotion for far less. We aren’t invited to laugh with Amanda. We are attuned to her desperation as she applies make-up in washrooms, charges her phone in cafes and is hounded out of parking spaces. The best scene in the film has her secure herself in her car for the night, placing pieces of cardboard over the windows and a stretch of climber’s rope between the two interior car doors. Seattle has a unit that combats vagrancy by asking vehicular residents to move on. One such officer hammers on Amanda’s window. Amanda finally secures a job but then her car is stolen. It is later recovered but that’s when her problems start. She doesn’t have the $272.80 needed to pay for the car’s release fee (‘it was stolen’), so decides to sue Kaplan’s Towing Company for its return instead. When in the courthouse, she meets then rebuffs not-for-profit lawyer, Kevin (Dominic Sessa), I found myself thinking, ‘what’s a two-for-two actor (The Holdovers, Tony) doing in a movie like this? Sessa’s performance style doesn’t vary from film to film. He angles his head downwards to look hyper-earnest. Kevin provides the nearest the film has to a sympathetic male character.  There are multiple scenes of him ordering coffee from an independent trader, as if to establish his decency. Several decades ago, being nice to children or animals served the same purpose.

Having lost her car, Amanda sleeps on a park bench, but even that is monetised by a local hustler, Charles (Rell Battle), an almost comic character. At one point, Amanda rushes across town to reach a shelter that is part of a church community centre. She is told that there is no admittance after 7:00pm. The manager, Barbara (Octavia Spencer) takes pity on her. One of the recovering addicts, Jocelyn (Lea DeLaria) does not, stealing Amanda’s boots. Punching Amanda in the face, she would have got away with it, if not for Barbara being everywhere all at once.

Early scenes alternate between Amanda attempting to support her child’s designer ambitions, promising her that she’ll visit at Christmas, and preparing for her day in court. Amanda delivers her case pro se (that is, representing herself) and receives an unexpected verdict. But when she comes to reclaim her car, she finds it has been sold at auction. At this point, having been sober for seven months, Amanda relapses, being told, ‘first one on the house’.

Seattle has no shortage of men wanting to exploit Amanda’s vulnerability; a man follows Amanda, offering her a car to rent. There is no shortage of alcohol either. When Amanda visits a corner shop, Laing places the camera low, framing some small miniature alcohol bottles, just within reach; you find yourself pleading for her not to purchase one. Laing has two editorial flourishes – flashbacks to a point-of-view shot over a bridge, suggesting Amanda’s most desperate moment, and cutaways to a pampered dog surrounded by balloons, posed in the animal hospital where Amanda couldn’t start work. The film’s suggestion that people care more about their dogs than the homeless strikes me as true.

Pictured: Not for profit lawyer, Kevin (Dominic Sessa, centre) plays intermediary between shelter manager, Barbara (Octavia Spencer, left) and displaced vehicular resident and qualified pet carer, Amanda (Rose Byrne, right) in a scene from the 2025 fact-based American film, 'Tow', directed by Stephanie Laing. Still courtesy of Vertical/Roadside Attractions (US)

Amanda’s character arc is that she has to learn to share. Well, the film is evidence of that; Ogle is one of the film’s executive producers. She finds herself supporting some of the other women, including Nova (Demi Lovato), a young pregnant woman. Though in a scene excised from the film but referred to later, Amanda reports Denise (Arianna DeBose) for using drugs. ‘I did it so you would receive help,’ she pleads as Denise curses her out.

Amanda really wants to see her teenage child again and there is a poignant moment at a seasonal celebration, during which Nova sings ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ and Denise is visited by her ex-partner and her children.  Kevin turns up with some good news. He has located her car, but she’ll have to wait longer before getting it back.

Laing fills the right-hand of the screen with the word ‘Day’ and a single digit number, which rapidly expands to double or triple-digits, representing the days Amanda has been without her car. It is no spoiler to say that the legal battle lasts over ten months. At one point, Amanda steals Kevin’s bicycle and rides around the yard outside Kaplan’s Towing, begging the clerk (Simon Rex) for her car. The scene is insufficiently comic. Although Amanda ties her hair up in a silky bandanna, the comic reference to Rosie the Riveter is likely to escape most of the audience.

Pictured: 'May I have my car back?' Vehicular resident Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne, right) lobbies a Kaplan's Towing employee (Simon Rex, left) for the restitution of her stolen 1991 blue Toyota Camry in a scene from the fact-based American film, 'Tow', written by Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin and directed by Stephanie Laing. Still courtesy of Vertical/Roadside Attractions (US)

The climax, in which the corporate lawyer (Bernsen) finally appears before a judge, doesn’t deliver the film’s cathartic kick. The film is less about Amanda’s day in court and more about her coming to terms with her dark past; an incident that caused her to develop a taste for alcohol. Except that Laing doesn’t quite sell that point. She acknowledges that Amanda’s lengthy legal battle is a representation of her not giving up on herself but does not make us feel Amanda’s daily struggle to stay focussed. Byrne doesn’t portray the doubt in Amanda or the depth of her anger. She appears miscast.

About that punchline. I won’t spoil it, but when the gag arrives, you don’t laugh. Tow suffers from a failure of tone, but it is unclear whether the writers, Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin, the director or the film’s producers are responsible.

Reviewed on Now TV, streamed Monday 21 September 2026