TOW (2026)

Starring Rose Byrne, Dominic Sessa, Demi Lovato, Ariana DeBose, Octavia Spencer, Simon Rex, Elsie Fisher, Corbin Bernsen, Becky Ann Baker, Rell Battle, Lea DeLaria, Bree Elrod, Roma Maffia, Dierdre Friel, Ann Harada, Erik Jensen, Lio Mehiel, Joseph Lyle Taylor, Jason Cottle, Fredi Bernstein, Sung Hyun Yoon, Owen Campbell, Sarah Kauffman and Chad Burris.

Screenplay by Brant Boivin & Jonathan Keasey.

Directed by Stephanie Laing.

Distributed by Roadside Attractions. 105 minutes. Rated R.

Rose Byrne has always had an adventurous sense when it came to picking characters. However, now that she is in her 40s and has somewhat graduated from Hollywood’s tendency to sign her up to play supportive roles, often hot wives and girlfriends in cheesy comedies. Which is not to say that even at this age Byrne isn’t truly beautiful, it’s just that her career has opened up to a point where she can take more chances. And she is taking full advantage of that, because she has always been a much better actress than she sometimes got credit for.

Tow comes hard on the heels of Byrne’s Oscar-nominated performance in If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You. Like that film, Byrne is given the opportunity to play an imperfect, troubled woman struggling with life’s indignities. And, again, Byrne pretty much hits it out of the park. (By the way, when I interviewed her several years ago, Byrne acknowledged that she had absolutely no interest in baseball, so she would totally not get that analogy, or at least not appreciate it.)

Also much like If I Had Legs, this film tells the kind of story which is usually ignored on film. Based on a true story, Tow follows Amanda Ogle (Byrne), a recovering alcoholic who is homeless and living in her car, a 1991 Toyota. One day, when she is applying for a job in hopes of getting together enough money to find a home, her car is stolen and taken for a joyride. It is eventually abandoned and falls into the hands of a towing company which has a contract with the city.

The towing company refuses to return her car without the payment of fees – fees that are added to every day that it is in the company’s lot. Homeless and without a job (ironically, she was offered the job she was applying for when her car was stolen, but she needed a car to do the job), she can’t afford the original penalty, and it is going up significantly daily, making it more and more impossible to pay for.

Amanda even takes the towing company to court and a judge ruled that the towing company legally has to return the car to her and wave the fees. However, the company simply refuses to honor the ruling, claiming the car has been sold. Thus begins an over year long legal nightmare where Amanda must fight to win back her car – her home – against a company which has much deeper pockets and decides to hold out on her just for spite.

Amanda must finally acknowledge that she needs help, which she finds in Kevin (Dominic Sessa), a very young public defender who takes on her case.

She must also finally give in to the idea of staying in a homeless shelter while she tries to get her home back, finding an imperfect but essentially welcoming community including the head of the shelter (Octavia Spencer) and some other down on their luck women (Demi Lovato, Ariana DeBose and Lea DeLaria).

In the meantime, she has to try to salvage her relationship with her teen daughter – who lives with her ex-husband and his new wife – without letting her daughter realize how desperate her situation has become.

Interestingly, the tow company in itself does not necessarily come off as so heartless – in fact one of the company’s employees (Simon Rex) is surprisingly empathetic to Amanda and actually becomes a bit friendly with her. However, the company’s lawyer, played by Corbin Bernsen, doesn’t want to allow her to win just on principle, knowing it would be easier just to throw legal hurdles at her to run out the clock. (Tow is not necessarily a very political film, but this lawyer very much practices law like one of the lawyers who works for Donald Trump.)

In the end, Tow is not quite as dark as If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You, nor is it quite as good. However, it is very good on its own merits. And while it has something of a feel-good ending, the concluding chyron of the film does reveal once again how much the game is stacked against the little person, even when they essentially win.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 18, 2026.