Review of Miracle Mile

Why I hated this movie and recommend it to everyone.

Like the miracle mile race in 1954, The Miracle Mile film is remembered for a reason. Like proverbial frog sitting in a boiling pot, you won’t realize the extent that the stakes are heating up until it’s reached a fever pitch. The convincing acting and refrain of hope in the face of oblivion keeps the movie from becoming too bleak and encourages the audience to root for a way out, while the plot tightens the thumbscrews of tension. It’s rare that a movie can use visual elements and quirky acting to amplify the audience’s hopes and fears, and this movie could be called a guide on how to do it.

Miracle Mile starts innocently enough. A young musician in the late 80s finds his dream girl, Laura, at the La Brea Tar Pits and courts her. The movie oozes 80s vibe, making it required watching for 80s aesthetics enthusiasts.

Harry sleeps through his alarm after an incident involving a crow, a cigarette and a fire. He misses their dates, showing up 3 hours late to pick Laura up from her midnight diner job. He answers a phone call at a phone booth, thinking it’s Laura, but the caller frantically tells him the world is ending in an hour. The nukes have left the silos. He believes the caller and so do the other diners in the dive.

The rest of the movie deals with his attempts to escape LA with his star-crossed lover. The movie leaves you constantly guessing whether the call was a joke, or the real deal. Few movies can keep me guessing about the plot, but the well-written hints had me switching opinions until the truth was revealed.

The film is carried by the excellent acting. As madness takes hold of everyday people, they exhibit the familiar behaviors of desperation. Chaos reigns, as the clock ticks down, and the lengths the characters go to to escape verge on ridiculous. The movie makes the case for its cast’s motives, their drives are crystal clear, rendering sympathetic, the characters who would seem psychotic in another context. And watching the everyday morph into the bizarre reminds us, we’re all a doomsday away from being forced into similar choices.

Suffusing this film with hope was probably the best idea the director/ screenwriter made. It could have been a slog of brutality and anxiety. But our main character firmly, stupidly believes that he will get out of LA. In his most desperate hour, he still looks on the bright side and you want to see him succeed despite the mounting wave of obstacles he must surf. It’s also where the terror of the movie hits home. Watching anyone cling to hope as their life raft disintegrates is heartbreaking and touches on primal fear.

The movie starts in the museum of the tar pits and there are multiple reasons for this choice related to the plot and themes. Ultimately, are we any better than the animals who died in the tar pits, thrashing, hoping to escape a horrible fate? And will history remember us more fondly than they?

As I stated, I hated this movie and never plan to watch it again. Its disturbing ending prompted me to wash my brain out with comedy afterwards. The ending will surprise some, but it will leave a mighty impression on all. It is a testament to how well this movie makes you care about the lovers who found each other on the Miracle Mile of LA, that I can’t stand to recall the ordeal the film depicts.

It’s rare that a film comes off as a thriller while not relying on typical thriller tropes. It is the terror and thrill of the mundane sliding into the extraordinary, of watching as good people who just want to save themselves and those they love become monsters. It is the hope that the miracle mile Harry races against the nukes or his own mind, will be worth something. Because ultimately, the movie asks how we would act in the face of our inevitable extinction and will it matter in the end.