I love this movie so much

One of my all time favorites.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

natural selection - my friend picked this film to watch, and it looked like a slapstick comedy, luckily for me it wasn't. i was not familiar with the actors, but thought all the performances were excellent. this film has a lot of heart, its quirky, but not in a pretentious way. an excellent movie about love and relationships. i found the movie touching sad funny and never knew how the film would end, right up until the credits started to roll. i recommend this movie to just about everyone. if you track it down, grab it you maybe as surprised as i was. fantastic drama comedy, that is as good as any movie with the big budget and big stars.

An okay indie flick bolstered by a fantastic lead performance by comedienne Rachael Harris. Harris is probably best known for playing Ed Helms' wife in The Hangover, or perhaps for her appearances on The Daily Show or VH1's I Love the '70s/80s/whatever. One could never have predicted the depth she gives to her character here. She plays a sexless, Christian housewife whose husband (John Diehl) suffers from a stroke. It comes to light that, though he refuses to sleep with her, he frequents the local sperm bank. Harris feels betrayed, but her husband is at death's door, so she attempts to forgive him. He mutters, perhaps from delirium, that she needs to find a long lost son, and she sets out to find the young man. Matt O'Leary plays the drug addict she finds, and, attempting to escape the sheriff, he takes off with her on a road trip. O'Leary is quite good himself, but, again, it's Harris' movie. The film starts off a little snarky about the whole situation, but Harris takes her character's dilemma seriously and plays her as a woman in deep emotional turmoil. The film is a dramedy, and it's often very funny. But Harris' dramatic moments are the ones you're going to remember. She's a true revelation here, turning in one of the best performances of the year.

Rachel Harris has a familiar face and a personality that one has been exposed to before. She has been in a number of background roles, from Ed Helms' nagging wife in The Hangover, Greg's loving mother in the ongoing Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise, and a number of Television roles, portraying numerous different characters.Harris embodies quite possibly one of her trickiest roles to date in Robbie Pickering's Natural Selection, a charming, wholesome independent film that doesn't overcompensate either of those qualities. She plays Linda White, a heavily-sheltered, quietly morose Christian housewife who has been married to her husband Abe (John Diehl) and has never acted on sensual impulses because her husband's devout beliefs have told him it's a sin to act purely on horniness. Linda will not admit it, but the fact that her long marriage has remained drab and sexless is physically and mentally draining her.When Abe is hospitalized and quickly approaching death, his dazed remarks about having an illegitimate kid on the count of frequent visits to sperm banks comes up and Linda commits to a cross-country trip from Texas to Florida to find the kid and bring him back to see his biological father before his death. The kid is a twenty-three year old punk named Raymond (Matt O'Leary), who has long been addicted to substance abuse, recklessness, alcohol, danger, and anything anti-normality. He is the polar opposite of sweet, religiously disciplined Linda, and by traveling across the country to get him, she must drive him back home, which gives the viewer some time to dive deeper into both their personalities.What amazes me from a screenplay standpoint is the realism between the characters Rachel and Raymond. Being opposites, we see Raymond's cold, unmoving feeling of her being "some weird bitch who showed up on my doorstep claiming her husband is my biological (bilateral) father) and we see Rachel's sweet side basically reiterating, "there's a good boy in there somewhere." And we can definitely see, mainly from the film's extensive depiction of it, that years of religious practice and her husband's celibacy that those circumstances have made a truly patient, understanding woman, only making her relationship with Raymond work on multiple different levels that never seem to stretch beyond ones' imagination.And again, the film largely works not only because of its screenplay, but because of its beautiful performances and sincerely, delicately captured southern locations that are equal parts warm and gritty. Matt O'Leary's character is wonderfully portrayed here, and Harris only brings out the most in him as an actor. Natural Selection shows us how performances and writing that is focused and alive can truly bring us a picture that otherwise could've been captured in a dim, shoddy light.Starring: Rachel Harris, Matt O'Leary, Joe Diehl, and Jon Gries. Directed by: Robbie Pickering.

By no means am I a fan of Fundamentalist Christians, but if you're going to laugh at them, give them their due. Unfortunately, Robbie Pickering, in his new indie roadie dramedy, 'Natural Selection', chooses to take cheap pot shots at their expense. We're introduced to a devout Christian couple, Linda (Rachel Harris) and Abe (John Diehl). Linda's "sin" was to have an abortion as a teenager and then supposedly ended up barren from the botched procedure. For her sin, Abe chooses not have sexual relations with her for the rest of their marriage (now totaling 25 years). If that isn't despicable enough, Abe still wants children, and periodically goes to the local sperm bank where he can provide specimens for use by infertile couples. When Abe has a stroke while masturbating to a porn video at the clinic, Linda learns of his long-term betrayal.While Linda does have a saving grace (her good nature), her moral imperative is markedly skewed. Out of a perverse loyalty, after surreptitiously and illegally foraging through the files at the sperm bank, she comes up with one of the names of Abe's progeny, Raymond, and leaves her hometown in Texas, traveling all the way to Florida, to bring him back, so that Abe's final wish to meet the errant prodigal son, is consummated.Linda finally does locate Raymond, who turns her away at the door, as he doesn't want to hear any 'Jesus stuff'. It turns out that Raymond is a criminal who's just escaped from the State Penitentiary and has a penchant for remaining in a drug-induced stupor, all day long. While Raymond initially rejects all of Linda's entreaties, he has a sudden change of heart when the police come knocking on his door.Pickering's idea of comedy is to contrast Linda's naïve belief that she can somehow 'change' Raymond with his stubborn attachment to the stoner lifestyle. Linda goes to absurd lengths to accommodate Raymond until he steals her Hatchback, and then promptly loses it. The ditsy Christian now appears to act more like a regular human being, as she now makes it clear to Raymond that she wants nothing more to do with him. But Raymond won't give up and now pursues her with more vehemence. The years without sex has taken its toll on Linda, and she now succumbs to Raymond's advances. The new found romance is interrupted by Linda's brother-in-law, Peter, the pastor of Abe and Linda's church, who has tracked the errant couple down, and almost kills Raymond, by firing a gun at him in the couple's motel room. Peter suffers a broken nose after Linda slugs him, landing him in the hospital.'Natural Selection' ends on a happy note of sorts. Linda learns that she's not barren after all and rejects both Abe (now in a wheelchair) and Raymond, who has morphed into an unlikely lovesick puppy dog, pining away for a rekindled romance with Linda. As for the now sadder but wiser former devout Christian, she takes a trip to the beach where presumably she'll bond with nature, and contemplate her impending motherhood.'Natural Selection' might have been more successful had Pickering treated his Fundamentalist Christians with a little more good-natured ribbing than the surly group and the heavy-handed machinations, he proffers up here. And even with the good-natured Linda, she comes off as a fool for putting up with the boorish antics of Raymond and eventually capitulating to his dubious charms.The performances here are good, particularly Rachael Harris as Linda, who actually does have some bona fide comedy chops. But there's little to laugh at, including the aforementioned pot shots at fundamentalist Christians, the unhealthy relationship between Linda and Raymond, which ultimately becomes tiresome, and Raymond's love sick puppy dog act at film's end. On the plus side, watch out for the neat twist at the denouement, when we learn that Raymond is actually Clyde, and was using his roommate Raymond's name, as an alias!If 'Natural Selection' does have a redeeming point, it's the unbridled optimism of the film's protagonist, Linda, who despite her wacky demeanor, proves that there's always some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. But ultimately, her encounter with a coterie of unpleasant antagonists, relegates 'Natural Selection' to the predictable limbo of a quirky, few laughs, indie roadie dramedy.