It’s September 1983 when Milwaukee housewife Julia Rabia (Lily Rabe) arrives in the small rural town of Owl, North Dakota, population 800. She has accepted a job teaching at the local high school, but has only agreed to stay on for a single semester. Besides the school, the main stretch of town pretty much consists of 2 gas stations, 3 bars, and a movie theater, which is closing—as everyone keeps informing Julia. Julia’s husband is working on his doctorate dissertation and so she wanted to get away to give him space, though there may be a bit more to that story.

As Julia gets acquainted with Owl, she meets some of the oddball locals and her fellow teachers. She quickly realizes that in this small town, people tend to wear multiple hats. Coach Laidlaw (Finn Wittrock) is not only the football coach, but also the head of the English department. And Julia discovers that she’s expected to teach volleyball as well as history and several other subjects. The Coach isn’t the warmest of people towards Julia, and she soon learns that seems to be a well-known, widespread rumor that he is dating one of his students, Tina McAndrew (Arden Michalec), who is also rumored to be pregnant. As Julia meets some of her students, the film breaks the fourth wall to allow the characters to share more about themselves and their inner thoughts and personalities. There’s the talkative and confident quarterback Eli Zebra (Jack Dylan Grazer), who takes his cues from Fast Times; the overachiever, though afraid to speak in public, Rebecca Grooba (Arianna Jaffier); reluctant jock and backup quarterback Mitch Hrlicka (August Blanco Rosenstein), who appears to be a bit depressed about something; and Mitch’s younger sister Katie Hrlicka (Emma Halleen).

When she’s not teaching, Julia can usually be found living it up at one of the local bars with her new best friend, fellow teacher Naomi (Vanessa Hudgens). Julia feels a sense of freedom out here on her own, away from what appears to be a troubled marriage. She acts like she’s back in high school herself, loving the attention that she receives at the bar, where all guys want to buy her drinks—even if they’re a bit odd and socially awkward. Though, she doesn’t really feel any attraction to anyone, that is until cowboy and local celebrity—former star quarterback Vance Druid (Henry Golding)—walks in. Julia is instantly smitten, but he appears to be immune and oblivious to her flirtation, which seems to work on all of the other men in Owl.

Meanwhile, Julia also befriends the kindly old Horace Jones (Ed Harris), a regular at the local diner, who is taking care of his ailing wife of 30 years. While the rumors about Coach Laidlaw seem to be widely accepted and ignored by the rest of the townsfolk, Horace is quite outspoken about his opinions on the matter, referring to the coach as a “bona fide sex criminal”. As Julia gets drunk every night, she questions her life choices, her marriage, and her direction in life. Did she come to Owl to get away, or did she she actually find her way home?

Downtown Owl is a quirky dramedy based on the 2008 novel “Downtown Owl: A Novel”, written by Chuck Klosterman. The original novel gives equal time to the stories of Julia, Mitch and Horace, but this film adaptation primarily focuses on Julia. As the movie opens we see that these three characters will ultimately and separately end up on caught in a blizzard. But then the film jumps back 4 months to Julia’s arrival in Owl, and the events that led us to that point. Julia is a bit of a mess, slowly revealing that her marriage is all but over, and her life is teetering on falling apart. Her husband is more concerned about his academic career while she wants to start a family. Julia allows herself to regress into more of a partying teenager as she tries to forget her problems, hanging out in the bar every night with her new friend/co-worker, showing up drunk to work, and hitting on a local sports hero. Helping her feel some kind of love and normalcy is diner regular Horace, who offers her a homecooked meal and someone to talk to. Even though Horace has his own tragic situation at home to deal with, he is always willing to talk and provide comfort. Meanwhile, there’s this smooth-talking teacher, Coach Laidlaw, who is up to some nefarious things, which everyone in the town just seems to ignore. However, this situation has really affected a group of the students, especially Mitch. And so we also follow these students as they try to get Julia and others to open their eyes and speak up about what’s happening. But Julia may be too involved in her own self-pity to step up.

While we are ultimately building to this big blizzard, the film is more of a character drama, following the intersecting lives of the people in this quirky small town, with Julia being more of an anti-hero. I’m not sure if we are supposed to feel sorry for Julia or root for her. Her life is a mess, but she just seems to make things worse. Lily Rabe fully embraces this character, delivering on the more dramatic turns, but also having a lot of fun with the laugh-out loud moments as Julia embraces her inner teenager. Vanessa Hudgens makes a fun partner and wingman to Julia, Ed Harris is always great especially in these more dramatic roles, and the younger actors feel like real teens, who can both have some fun, but who are also on a mission of justice. The rest of the townsfolk are filled with all sorts of quirky characters.

Sony has released Downtown Owl on digital format, but no physical release has been announced at this time. Normally in my reviews, I would comment on the audio and video presentation of the release, but I watched this film via a screener, and I’m not sure how it compares to the final quality of the consumer product. The films has some really creative shots, such as an animation to introduce viewers to the town, and the aforementioned breaking of the fourth wall to have the students introduce themselves. There’s also a comedic scene where we see contrasting views of what Julia is actually saying to Vance at the bar, versus what she means to say. The filmmakers constantly make use of a fisheye lens, which can be a bit distracting at times when the sides of the image shift or curl. The film is presented in English and should offer subtitles (my screener did not), however, there doesn’t appear to be any supplemental material offered with this digital release.

What’s Included:

Digital specs may vary by platform/retailer.

Film: (1:31:32)

• 1080p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English

Extras:

No bonus material included

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I enjoyed Downtown Owl for its quirky characters and its 1980s small-town setting. I think the story could have been expanded and fleshed out a little more—this may have worked a little better as more of a Northern Exposure-like TV series, following the ongoing drama of these characters each week. But the film finds a nice blend between the character drama and laugh-out loud moments, skewing a little more towards the drama, especially towards the end of the film. It’s worth a look, especially for fans of the cast.

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