The recent movie “If I Had Legs I would Kick You”, gave an Oscar nomination to Rose Byrne for best actress. This story was about a woman who was constantly down on her luck, with one bad break after another, trying to survive. We can all relate to stories like this one, because we all know that life can be much more than just unfair.

I was surprised at the similarity of the new Rose Byrne movie “Tow”, which is a movie about a woman Amanda played by Rose Byrne, who has lost everything due to a car accident followed by addiction to opioids, alcoholism, and is now barely surviving and living in her car. This screenplay would be impossible to pitch to any producer were it not for this insane story being 100% true.

Tow is not only a story about perseverance and survival, but also the cruelty of other people, who not only do not care about another person who is at their lowest, but go out of their way to make their lives even worse.

On a job interview to work at a Veteranarian clinic, Amanda parks her car legally in a local parking lot. After the interview, when she is on a high after getting the job, she notices that her car (a 1991 Toyota Corolla) has been stolen. Even though the car was stolen and has now been found, Rose is required to pay a towing station $279 dollars. We find out later that this is a scam to take advantage of desperate, poor people. After Rose does not have the money to get her car back, she seeks justice through the court system, which is a disaster of red tape, paperwork, and incompetent people. Even with a court order ordering the towing company to return Amanda’s car, the towing company sells her car, and she has to continue to fight to get her car back, and every day the towing company adds more fines, eventually totaling to over $22,000. This is all impossible to believe that a situation like this could exist in the United States.

Due to some fluke luck, Amanda finds a lawyer, Kevin, played by Dominic Sessa, who actually wants to help her, but his help uncovers the lawyer/owner of the towing company, Martin LaRosa, played by Corbin Bernson, who goes out of his way to make Amanda’s life even more unbearable than it already is. It is clear throughout this story that Amanda not only loves the car that she has owned for many years, but for someone like Amanda, her car is also her home; and lowlifes like LaRosa only care about piling on their unrelenting cruelty.

Despite this low-budget movie, there are a large number of well-known actors, including Octavia Spencer, Demi Lovato, Corbin Bernsen, and Oscar-winning Ariana DeBose. The acting is great throughout this story. There are also outstanding sub-stories including the manager of a homeless shelter played by Octavia, a homeless pregnant woman played by Lovato, and a single mother and drug addict played by Debose.

This film is about real life, injustice, and the cruelty of some very bad people towards the unfortunate homeless who are down on their luck. Much of this story is hard to watch for anyone who has any level of human empathy.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this very good movie are a too low 78% with my rating at 85% and a strong recommendation.