Movies: Short Film About Abortion

“Red, White and Blue”

A short, new abortion-themed movie by Nazrin Choudhury recently caught my attention. “Red, White and Blue,” not the best name for the 22-minute movie (@rwbfilm23 on X), features Brittany Snow as an Arkansan forced to cross state lines in search of an abortion. A plot twist complicates this tale of a single waitress mother.

English writer and director Choudhury, who ended health care and political pursuits to focus on fiction writing, has authored TV scripts, such as Jack Ryan, and a play, Mixed Blood. Choudhury, who recently completed a script for a prospective Universal Studios picture starring Rami Malek, appeared at a talent agency meet and greet after a Beverly Hills screening of “Red, White and Blue” this week, which I attended.

A woman’s right to abortion, compromised last year when the Supreme Court overturned the flawed 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, is a vital and timely topic. “Red, White and Blue” takes it seriously with a compelling script and good performances, especially by Snow (Nip/Tuck on FX) as mom to two kids. Snow’s waitress character plans, prepares and thinks through her problems, which begin with a pregnancy test at the coffee shop where she works. Her son’s played by Redding Munsell. The daughter’s played by Juliet Donenfeld. As her regular patron, Mo Collins is good.

After a gray, mood-setting rain and departure point, mother and daughter embark on a road trip as the audience follows the script’s logic. The cash-strapped mom is tense as her kid gets happy riding a merry-go-round. Add dancing, a moment at the waterfront and the mother’s forewarning to “choose carefully,” which might’ve been Ms. Choudhury’s intended mother-daughter theme, and the short absorbs attention.

Following a potent twist, an explication of symbolism rings false and falls flat. This and the director’s decision to emphasize a single-sex plot keep her strong movie from being unforgettable. There’s an unresolved issue of a mother-daughter talk that takes place offscreen—or, conceivably, on the movie’s terms, not at all—which sidelines relevant parental, volitional and psychological-philosophical contexts of dramatizing a woman’s right to abortion. Still, the movie, the first satisfactory abortion-themed film since Lily Tomlin in Grandma, deserves an audience.