Hick (film)

Plot

In the 1980s, a girl named Luli McMullen (Chloë Grace Moretz) lives a depressing life with her neglectful mother (Juliette Lewis), and alcoholic father (Anson Mount) in a small Nebraska town, where she's derided as a "bar baby" by the other kids. On her 13th birthday, she receives a revolver as a gift. Shortly thereafter, Luli sees a commercial for Las Vegas and decides to run away there. She hitches a ride from Eddie (Eddie Redmayne), an erratic drifter with a damaged leg. They argue and she leaves the car. She eventually convinces another passerby, Glenda (Blake Lively), to give her a ride. They bond after Luli helps Glenda rob a store and spend the night in a trailer behind a bowling alley, where a little boy named Angel lives and who Glenda seems to take care of on some level. Luli again encounters Eddie that night in the parking lot of the bowling alley.

The next day, Glenda takes Luli to the home of a man named Lloyd (Ray McKinnon), who seems to be Glenda's husband. Luli discovers that Eddie works for Lloyd, and also that Glenda knows Eddie and is quite upset to see him. While Lloyd initially appears friendly, his true mean-spirited, tyrannical nature shows through when he viciously berates Eddie for a perceived mistake (Eddie retaliates by urinating in Lloyd's drink, which goes undetected by Lloyd). Eddie tells Luli that Lloyd and Glenda want to be alone, so he takes her to a bar. Eddie is interrupted while hustling pool by Luli, and when his hustle fails, the man that he was hustling makes a deal with Eddie on terms uncertain to the audience. The man then follows Luli into the ladies room to rape her. She fights him before Eddie comes in and savagely beats the man to death.

As they leave the bar, Eddie says that Glenda has asked him to take Luli to a Motel 6 to meet Glenda because she got in a fight with Lloyd, but not before Luli walks in on Eddie doing drugs with two junkies. At the motel, Eddie gets drunk and tells Luli that Glenda actually gave him a thousand dollars to take her off Glenda's hands. Heartbroken by this news and unnerved by Eddie's behavior, Luli goes outside, where she meets a boy named Clement (Rory Culkin) and has a nice time playing a drinking game with him. Eddie interrupts them in a drunken rage fueled by jealousy, and the two leave the motel. When Eddie insinuates he's fallen in love with Luli, she tells him she will never love him back and asks him to pull over, leaving the car despite Eddie begging her to stay. While she's walking away, Eddie suddenly gets out of the car and chases Luli into a cornfield, where he rapes her off-screen.

The next day, Luli wakes up to find herself tied to a bed in a rented cabin at a small resort and dressed differently, with shorter hair that's been dyed black. Luli shouts for help to no avail. Eddie arrives with flowers, unties her and professes his love for her, promising to never rape her again. They are interrupted by the proprietor, Beau (Alec Baldwin), who asks Eddie how long he needs the place, briefly talks with Luli and leaves. The next day, Luli, tied up again, wakes up to find Glenda in the room. Glenda confesses that Eddie was her lover, that Angel is their son together, and that she's spent years running from him. Luli also finds out that Eddie lied about Glenda giving him money and that he essentially kidnapped her from Lloyd's house; Glenda has been looking for her ever since. They are soon caught by Eddie, who accidentally shoots and kills Glenda with Luli's revolver. Luli picks up the gun and kills Eddie before falling to the ground. Later, Beau happens upon the scene. He then feeds Luli eggs and talks about his sister and how "she always wanted a daughter," insisting that Luli "look her up."

Beau then drives Luli to the bus station, her plan being to reunite with her own family. After she calls home, she learns her mother was barely concerned with her being missing and her father has also disappeared, a fact also met with relative indifference by her mother. Luli realizes she will be no better off if she goes back. While on the bus, she looks through her notebook of drawings and finds a note from Beau reading "Dear Luli, in case you change your mind" on a picture he drew of his sister's home in Los Angeles with her address written on the picture. She manages to get off by telling the bus driver that she needed to take her medicine and simulates an epileptic attack. Once off the bus, Luli runs all the way back to the station and buys a ticket to Los Angeles.

Cast

Differences from the novel

Reception

Hick has received almost universally negative reviews by critics with a 5% approval rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and an average score of 26/100 on Metacritic.