This is a real old-fashioned piece of moviemaking that will likely have its memory marred by one of the most successful and slightly discomforting awards campaigns in recent history. Whether Andrea Riseborough “deserves” her Academy Award nomination for Best Actress or is merely well-connected and the beneficiary of a savvy effort to publicly create awareness for her work is immaterial when you look at the movie. Because the latter is the purpose of ALL campaigns, and it’s all a clubby farce, with a different coat of paint year to year. It’s always been prejudiced and sometimes hostile, but mostly it’s one big vainglorious goof that’s fun to gossip about and predict toward. What strikes me about To Leslie is not…

Michael Morris’ “To Leslie” is a redemptive drama about a poor Southern white lady played by Andrea Riseborough, who wins $190,000 in the state lottery and only learns the value of sharing after she’s drank all her cash away. But for a while there, the film is almost as slippery and elusive as the actress who plays its title role.

Is it going to be — as the first stop along its episodic first half would suggest — a gruesome scream-fest between a bottom-of-the-bottle alcoholic and the semi-adult son (Owen Teague) who’s trying to give her a second chance? Is it going to be the trashy throwdown that’s teased by Leslie’s “The Real Housewives of Nowhere, Texas”-style reunion with her…

Not sure why I hadn’t even heard of this film up until a few days ago, but I really loved it. Sure you could knock it for not being incredibly original, but I just love a story well told, even if I’ve heard the story a thousand times. Andrea Riseborough is so ridiculously good in this. She’s surrounded by excellent support as well from Allison Janney and Marc Maron in particular. Risenborough’s titular Leslie had won a $190,000 lotto jackpot, but had squandered it all on alcohol and (presumably) drugs among others things with nothing left to show for it other than a severe case of alcoholism. We pick up her story 6 years later where she’s the laughing stock…

It's kind of amusing and curious that of all the films nominated for Oscars this year, it's this little intimate drama that has caused so much commotion, and after seeing it, I join the group of people who have been singing Andrea's praises, since it's her performance that elevates the entire film, which in all honesty is clichéd and would have passed with flying colors in other hands.

Even if much of what she does here is not exactly original and many may say it falls on Oscar bait, whatever the case may be, it's the great stuff, and from the first second on screen the actress gets to catch your attention and retain it until the end, and it…