Brittany Runs a Marathon

2019 Directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo

A young woman decides to make positive changes in her life by training for the New York City Marathon.

Jillian Bell Michaela Watkins Utkarsh Ambudkar Lil Rel Howery Micah Stock Alice Lee Patch Darragh Peter Vack Kate Arrington Juri Henley-Cohn Adam Sietz Mikey Day Max Pava Jennifer Dundas Erica Hernandez Dan Bittner Beth Malone Nadia Quinn Pascal Yen-Pfister Miriam A. Hyman Gene Gabriel Gina Costigan Sarah Bolt Ian Unterman Robert Garcia Cabrera Maia Nkenge Wilson Frances Eve Esteban Benito

Alternative Titles

她的马拉松, La carrera de Brittany

comedy drama

103 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Karsten Runquist ★½ 10

I wish I liked this more, I mean it’s practically on hands and knees begging for me to love it. It’s trying so hard and that’s why it feels so boring. The choice to go handheld in certain scenes was nice, but aside from that it feels like this made all the wrong choices.
Review by Logan Kenny ★★★ 11

it’s far from great but it inadvertently made me realise that I could just sign up for a marathon if I wanted to, so I just did. in six months, I’ll be attempting to run 26 miles for cancer research in Edinburgh, and I am truly astonished at my levels of impulsiveness. gonna have to train like crazy goddamn. proud of myself for doing this.
Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★½ 7

Brittany (Jillian Bell) is a person with some destructive streaks. The struggle was real as she went through the motions to lose a vast amount of weight to run a marathon (Jillian Bell lost 40 pounds as well to pull off her character's accomplishment). All the main plot points are here: finding out who her real friends are, finding out what her strengths and limits are, the jokes, the family's support, etc. The end is very nice. It's a small independent film that did well at Sundance and now has some distribution.
Random notes:
-There is a shot of an Uno game and there are basically 40 yellow cards in a row. I wanted to know if the person who…
Review by kevinyang ★★ 8

Yikes. I’m all for giving first time filmmakers a chance, but at least make sure he or she is a right fit for the project. Being friends with the subject isn’t enough, sorry. It’s painfully clear that this is a debut - the dialogue is terrible and chock full of heavy handed exposition throughout, scenes end at strange times and are stitched together awkwardly, and the screenplay really struggles to organically weave all the supporting characters into the story. It’s also tonally all over the place. Bell is decent and there are some funny moments, but everyone and everything is just kinda...bad. It’s also uncomfortably mean spirited at times and strays way too close to undercutting its own message, so…
Review by kayla ★★ 1

I know this is playing on airplanes everywhere right now
Review by <Todd> ★★ 9

"I'm sorry but I'll have to report you for this." - Brittany,
-2019 Ranked: boxd.it/2lsbC
I've discovered it's hard to lose weight when you don't really like doing anything and you also don't really like abstaining from anything.
Brittany is a late 20s fuckup who is overweight so she starts training for a marathon to help with her weight and confidence. Along the way she interacts with a ragtag group of people, none of whom are very funny at all. What ensues is one of the more paint by numbers films of the year.
This is a first world problems film with no special way of shooting or applying the script. I like Jillian Bell and she does fine here…
Review by bel ★★ 2

tobey maguire produced this and im confused
Review by 🌻 lindsay 🌻 ★★★

When this film started it hit a little too close to home. It captured all of my current anxieties and put them on screen. I relate so much to Brittany’s fears of being close to 30 and feeling lost and scared in life. So you try to cling onto one thing that makes you feel like you’re in control and doing something worthwhile. I feel that and I really felt for this character because I could see a lot of myself in her.
But then as the film progresses, Brittany becomes so mean. Like really really mean. Like hard to root for her mean. And it never feels like that really pays off. I was never like oh I understand…
Review by Issac ★★★★

This film is disguised as just being a movie about someone who wants to run the NYC marathon but ends up being a lot more than just that. There’s a lot of growth, realization, and acceptance and Brittany and her friends being full grown adults, you realize you are never too old nor is it ever too late to have to deal with things like that.
It’s hard not to relate to this movie especially when living a life of adulthood and independence at a young age, it gets tough. And getting older only makes it harder when you see others your age (or younger) succeeding. But thanks to this film, it helps to see that all you need to…
Review by Erik Nordgren ★★★★½

“It’s New York City, of course I’ve slept on a rat”
I really really really loved this, it was hilarious and fun and touching and i DID in fact cry and also felt unbelievably seen because new york is just like this.
Review by Austin Burke ★★★ 2

👌🏻63%
2019 list - Click HERE
This is an extremely sweet film with good intentions. It’s all about being aware of your situation and striving to get to a better place, both mentally and physically. That’s all fine and dandy, but it’s all about how you go about it. To better yourself does not mean to tear down others. Brittany is one of my most unlikable characters of the year. It isn’t even necessarily the fault of Jillian Bell, because she’s a talented actress. She is likable, but the character she is playing has some incredibly rude tendencies. She constantly shames others out of anger, puts down her friends, refuses help from those that care about her, so on and so…
Review by StormofCuteness ★★★½

One of the things I really appreciated about this film is that losing weight wasn't what made her a better person, and also, it's made very clear in the latter half of the film that women can be in happy relationships with themselves and romanticly while still being large.
So, that was refreshing. I also adore Jillian Bell, and she's great in this. Also a fan of the diversity in casting.
This film brought up a lot of my own wounds so I got overly emotional. Hopefully, it'll just be a good night out at the movies for most.

Recent reviews

Review by Sam Libby ★★★½

Such a nice movie! Jillian Bell is delightful as always and gets to work with a very witty script. I always love to see Michaela Watkins in stuff! Micah Stock and Utkarsh Ambudkar were the two highlights of the film. Both were very funny!
Review by hannah ★½ 1

southwest airlines cinema
Review by Phoebe French ★★★

Mixed feelings until the end. Started going in a toxic direction but she did it for herself in the end🥺
Review by chughes42 ★★★½

good
Review by charityboi13 ★★★

I mean it did what it had to do
Review by Jumptank ★★★½

Feels very similar to Run Fat Boy Run from 2007, but different enough that I had a good time.
Review by thenameskatie ★★★½

Pretty motivating, I liked this one a lot
Review by jpnunez ★★

me cuesta darme cuenta si tiene buen timing o sólo usa golpes bajos. me cagué de la risa y casi lloro en pila de oportunidades.
pero pero pero no deja de ser una historia sobre cómo con el trabajo duro todo se logra y más aún si vivís en el norte económico y fuiste a una de las mejores universidades del mundo.
pero bueno, fuera de eso zafa
Review by RainbowGlasses ★★½

Not the inspirational comedy that was advertised. Brittany has to cope with the rage and alienation that can accompany a body transformation. Darker than I expected but never digs deep.
Review by Josue Garcia ★★

watched on holiday this past weekend at the suggestion of a friend. i appreciated what they were going for but this film had all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop with none of the efficacy. jillian bell does her best with a character that is written to be essentially unlikeable which wouldn’t matter if the story didn’t essentially require a central character to root for. not a total waste but highly disappointing.
Review by Gael Hernández ★★★★

This was so good. Hit all the right places. Almost made me wanna cry, the worst thing is it's a super cookie cutter type of movie. But definitely a perfect example of "it doesn't matter what you tell, what matters is how you tell it"
Review by kennataymarcus ★★★

Inspirational, witty and heartfelt.
A true story about taking back your life.
So many of us live a life that is based on the stories other people say about us that after years of hearing believe to be true.
This movie inspires the viewer to re-examine those stories and take responsibility for the life you want. Although it does gloss over many emotional wounds the character has, while only focusing on the physical. By the end I think it’s clear that it was never about the weight and instead about proving to herself that she can be whoever she chooses.