Anne Blaine

Anne Blaine is a hairdresser raising her teenage son Taylor mostly on her own, working long hours and short on money. When something happens to Taylor at a party thrown by boys from an elite private school, she pushes her way into rooms that were never built for someone like her, demanding the school take her son seriously.

Lili Taylor plays Anne without a trace of the noble-mother shorthand these roles usually get; her exhaustion, defensiveness, and flashes of temper feel lived-in rather than dramatic. The writing lets her be difficult and right at the same time, and Taylor finds the specific, unglamorous grain of a woman fighting an institution that keeps talking past her.