“I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking)”

(USA)

Screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center Black Harvest Film Festival (7/10); reviewed on Metacritic (7/10), Rotten Tomatoes (***+)

What would you do if you were to suddenly find yourself a single parent with no savings or steady work? Unfortunately, there’s a good chance you might become homeless in relatively short order. And, if so, how would you handle those circumstances for you and your dependents? For a widowed young mother, it means setting up a tent in a secluded location and telling your child that you’re both on an extended camping trip. So it is in this pandemic era comedy-drama about living by one’s wits to survive and to attempt to come up with the cash needed to secure a roof over one’s head, a goal with both critical financial and time constraints. Spread out over the course of one long, challenge-ridden day, this story follows mom as she struggles to meet a tight deadline to come up with the money for a new apartment by nightfall. Will she make it? And what sacrifices might she have to make to do so? Writer-actor-directors Kelley Kali and Angelique Molina have come up with a troubling yet thoughtful and playful narrative that poses an array of insightful “what if” questions, some humorous, some desperately unnerving, all with variously underlying currents of peril, whimsy and hard choices. Some might contend that it’s implausible for so many diverse developments to emerge within the course of a single day, but, as many of us can well attest, stranger things have been known to happen, so there’s no reason to rule them out here, either. And, if such a scenario were to indeed materialize, let’s hope that it’s as touching, hopeful and fun as this one is.