Movie Review: 'I'm Fine (Thanks for Asking)

I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) was co-written, co-directed and stars Kelley Cali as Danny, a woman struggling to keep up in the wake of the death of her husband. Unable to keep up with the mounting bills, Danny finds herself and her daughter, Wes (Wesley Moss), sleeping in a tent on the outskirts of her L.A suburb. In order to protect her daughter, Danny has told Wes they are camping and then moving to a new apartment.

On the day of this story, Danny has a chance to finally gather just enough money to pay the rent on a new apartment, but a lot of things have to happen for this to go right. Naturally, things don’t go as planned. After rollerskating to a friend’s home to do her hair, Danny gets shorted on the promised pay for this service and is left scrambling. With few options, Danny turns on her postmates delivery app.

On a hot day, with no car and only rollerskates to get her from one place to another, Danny races around at an exhausting pace in order to make up tips to cover the couple hundred she needs for the new apartment. Being on rollerskates means that it takes her a little longer to get to some deliveries and this affects her rating as a delivery person and affects the amount of tips she receives which then means she must work even harder.

Danny does have another option to get the money but she’s wholly opposed to the idea. On her pinky finger, Danny wears her late husband’s ring. The ring is real gold and has just enough value to make the rent payment on the new apartment. Danny however, doesn’t want to hear about it., he notion of giving up her late husband’s is too much in the wake of his relatively recent death.

I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) is about pride and the way it can sometimes get in the way of good sense. It’s also about grief and holding on to the past in the face of pragmatic change. Houselessness is a real issue with people at the bottom of the economic ladder constantly concerned about losing their house/apartment. People trying to avoid becoming burdens to friends and family by sleeping on their couches or in spare rooms or worse. Then there are those who would exploit the situation by unseamly means. I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) has a brief subplot about a man in Danny’s life who tries to take advantage of her situation.

I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) thrives on being authentic and genuine. Danny is a microcosm of the bottom of the economic ladder and how so many people are one missed paycheck away from losing everything. Imagine if while delivering food on her rollerskates, Danny rolled an ankle? She’d lose the day and likely the chance to get the apartment she’s so desperately working hard for. That’s a thin thread to hang from and how many Danny’s are there in the world, more than we’d like to know, I imagine.

It’s one of the strangest tropes of our culture, how we venerate work as if it is the highest form of effort a human can achieve. We’ve bred generations to believe that hard work can be its own reward because you feel accomplished or you're too tired to realize how unpleasant it is to do nothing but work. It’s a bedrock ideal of our culture and while I certainly don’t oppose work, when I look at how other countries take care of their workers, pay them a decent wage, provide for their healthcare and keep a safety net open for the Danny’s of the world so that they can maintain their home and their dignity.

I can already hear the keyboards clicking, calling me a socialist, communist, SJW, but that’s just a bunch of meaningless noise. It’s not about ideology, it’s about compassion, it’s about seeing a capable young woman and her daughter sleeping in a tent on the side of the road and feeling empathy and a desire to rearrange the world a little so when someone is in the position Danny is, a compassionate society can help pick her up and get her back on her feet. It’s about giving her everything, she wouldn’t accept that. But having a hand to hold while she climbs out of the hole she’s in, what’s wrong with that?

Just because your version of capitalism is heartless, bloodless and inhuman, it doesn’t mean that mine has to be that way as well. Most people want to earn their way. Often those who find themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder aren’t there because they are lazy or incompetent, they just haven’t had the right break. They need helping hand and we can live in a world that makes that possible, if we choose to.,

That’s a windy way of saying that I loved I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking). The film debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival this week and you should bookmark it so you know to look for it when it debuts for regular streaming rental.