Mark Reviews Movies: CATCH THE FAIR ONE

Catch the Fair One, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 10, 2022

Writer/director Josef Kubota Wladyka's Catch the Fair One is a lean thriller that becomes more desperate, hopeless, and haunting as its spare plot unfolds. There isn't much to that plot, these characters, or some deeper theme, and that's part of the film's strength. It follows a hunt for the truth and vengeance to that journey's inevitable end, and with each step forward and hope dashed, we're left to wonder, not where things might have gone wrong, but how things could have possibly gone right.

The film stars Kali Reis, a professional and world-champion boxer, in her acting debut. She plays Kaylee, a retired boxer—although not by choice, according to her official story, at least—who now works as a server at a greasy spoon. The role was clearly written for Reis, and indeed, the multi-first-timer also has a story credit accompanying Wladyka. In addition to the name and the profession, Reis' character is half Native American and half Cape Verdean, like the boxer herself.

The story revolves around the mistreatment, abuse, and exploitation of Indigenous girls and young women, and unlike so many reality-based thrillers recently, this one doesn't attempt to add false significance with statistics at the beginning or end. The underlying importance and purpose of this tale is right there on the screen—in the grief, the trauma, and the uncertainty of Kaylee, as well as in the almost procedural way Wladyka's screenplay takes us through each component of the illegal system the protagonist navigates in her search.

Reis is a formidable presence from her first appearance in the film, being taped and gloved for an upcoming match, and she only becomes more so through the battles and violence that erupt as she moves higher and higher up this chain of corruption. There's a lot more going on in her performance, though, and the ferocity and resentment against everything that has happened to Kaylee and her family—not to mention all of the unnamed girls and women who appear along the way—carries through and into the fiber of the narrative.

Kaylee, nicknamed "KO" for her now left-behind prowess in the ring, isn't grieving, because, for all she knows, her younger sister Weeta is still alive. She disappeared one night, and there hasn't been a sign or word of her in about two years.

Kaylee stopped fighting, on account of her back, she tells a fan who shows up at the restaurant where she works, but she hasn't stopped training. There is still a battle to fight one of these days, but the sisters' mother Jaya (Kimberly Guerrero), a grief counselor, just wants whatever peace is possible for herself and her remaining daughter, who had disappeared in her own way via drugs until recently.

That has ceased, because Kaylee's friend Brick (Shelly Vincent, who's another real-life boxer) has found a possible lead on Weeta's whereabouts. In order to infiltrate the organization and begin a real search, Kaylee will put herself through the horrors of sex trafficking.

For the most part, the rest of the plot does simply take us from one stop to the next through that underground system of sexual exploitation. There's the word on the street about work, which starts Kaylee on her search. Women find it or are forced into it—both unaware of what this world actually entails. For her part, Kaylee tries to maintain some control over her involvement, staying aware and keeping a razor blade tucked in her lip (Brick encouraged her to practice sleeping with it at the hostel where Kaylee had been living).

The problems, even for someone as alert and strong as Kaylee, begin quickly, with the first contact forcing a needle of heroin into her arm. Wladyka gives much of this first section an almost relaxed pacing, as much of it is spent waiting, taking a lengthy walk across a truck stop, and on a long drive to Kaylee's next destination. The effect, initially, provides plenty of tension, as we have a basic understanding of what Kaylee is getting into without specifics of how it will happen, and eventually, it lulls us into a feeling of security—as false as we know it to be. The impact of it, though, is sudden, and soon enough, Kaylee is in the clutches of Bobby (Daniel Henshall), the son of trafficking kingpin Willie (Kevin Dunn).

From there, the remainder of the plot is simple but never predictable. At times, Bobby—who's given an added layer of fundamental sympathy in his relationship with his son (played by Wesley Leung), which is instantly eliminated by the additional layer of cruelty toward his wife (played by Tiffany Chu)—and/or his goons have the upper hand on Kaylee. Matters flip (A clever sequence establishes a shift in power dynamics by what we see—and then don't see—on a dresser), and that's when Kaylee displays the full range of her skills, her cunning, and her calculated rage against people who profit from the pain of others.

There's a righteousness to this anger, beyond the personal stakes of Kaylee's hunt, just as there's real skill in the way Wladyka controls the pacing of certain scenes and segments to generate tension or provide a sense of how exhausting the whole of this scenario is. As a thriller, then, Catch the Fair One is both straightforward, in terms of plot, and unexpected, in terms of craft. The most unforeseen turn, perhaps, is how this tale of fury and violence maintains and, in the film's final juxtaposition of scenes, deepens the feelings of grief and regret beneath its surface.

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