This all turns out to be a compressed prelude to the bulk of the film, a lean, slow road picture that follows Gensan and Ruby as they go on the run with the abducted baby girl in tow, heading towards Kansas City, Missouri. If the script and the direction (by Collin Schiffli) had a more finely tuned sense of irony, "All Creatures Here Below” might have been a towering addition to the sub genre of couple-on-the-run films, represented by the likes of "Bonnie and Clyde," "Badlands" and "True Romance," which put childlike adults front-and-center, had a streak of absurd or pitch-black comedy, and weren't afraid to dive headfirst into crime movie situations. 

This one seems hesitant to do that, perhaps thinking that there's nothing funny about these characters or their world. There are times when it feels a bit too much like "Raising Arizona" reimagined as a depressed kitchen sink drama. These moments are leavened by a number of unnerving interactions between the lead characters, including a scene where Gensan catches Ruby trying to breastfeed the baby and realizes she knows less about this aspect of female biology than he does. But overall, this is exceptionally grim stuff. And I'm not convinced that it earns its Old Testament finale, which to me felt like a case of storytellers straining to land an emotional knockout punch.

The most original part of the movie is the opening 20 minutes, when we watch Gensan and Ruby struggle to survive on the seedy fringes of Los Angeles. This section feels like an American version of certain films by British directors like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach that are sincerely interested in the struggles of people who live from paycheck to paycheck. Ruby and Gensan exist adjacent to, but apart from, a Southern California dream factory, overseen by a handful of multibillion-dollar multinational entertainment corporations headquartered in glass towers, office parks and soundstages. (One of these is Disney, which employed both lead actors as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.) The gleaming skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles loom out-of-focus in the backgrounds of shots, a reminder of a world of privileged people who rarely think about the workers who serve them.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46ao6Vlk6eyosDUq5ysZZiav6Z5wZ6jqK9dZ31yhQ%3D%3D