Mackenzie Davis in Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town (Shout! Factory)

Izzy (Mackenzie Davis) wakes up in the apartment of whoever she hooked up with the night before. Her catering outfit is covered in both blood and wine. In a dream she just had, her older (albeit British) self tells her she needs to go to Providence. In the bathroom of Mr. Last Night, she finds a postcard from Providence, Rhode Island. And then she receives a message from her ex boyfriend’s dad, who regrets to tell her that there will be an engagement party that evening for her ex, Roger, and her former best friend—and the location of the party is on Providence Road, on the other side of Los Angeles. So clearly the universe is sending her some heavy vibes, only her car is at the mechanic’s, and she is broke AF.

Writer-director Christian Papierniak’s first feature film is an odyssey across the landscape of the less-glamorous side of LA, the working-class neighborhoods where Izzy and company reside. She’s trying to reach the bougie engagement party in one of the nicer neighborhoods, where she believes all her problems will be solved. Take that for a metaphor, because it’s fully intended.

As Izzy makes her way across the city, bumming rides, stealing bikes, and even a kid’s scooter, she meets different people who are also down-and-out (the point: everybody has their own drama), including a shut-in who needs everything delivered to him (Haley Joel Osment), an alcoholic Ivy League grad (Alia Shawkat) who debates chaos vs. fatalism with Izzy, and Izzy’s sister (Carrie Coon), with whom she is currently on the outs.

Davis (who co-produced) has a penchant for playing existentially fraught riot grrrls, such as Cameron Howe on TV’s Halt and Catch Fire and the recent Diablo Cody-Jason Reitman-Charlize Theron vehicle, Tully. She’s become her generation’s Parker Posey, only less unnerving, or Zooey Deschanel, only less pixie. Izzy is supposed to be the lovable loser type, that girl we all know who bounces from service job to service job who has musical talent but just can’t seem to get her life together and is in constant need of financial assistance from her friends and family.

Through an unfolding backstory, it rings clear that Izzy believes her past relationship with the well-to-do Roger (Alex Russell) was the glue that held her life together. She’s certain that destiny is pulling her toward that party so she can profess her love to him—if she can just find a way to get there.

The premise is actually a lot like the 2007 Anna Faris–led Gregg Araki film Smiley Face, only in place of weed fueling that character’s odyssey across LA, Izzy’s story features a lot of alcohol imbibing. Seriously, she drinks her way across the city. It makes you wonder if she’ll even be able to stand by the time she gets to the engagement party.

But whereas Smiley Face had a bit more of a running theme, not to mention charm, Izzy’s journey is haphazard, and at the end, the moral about self-actualization is just dumped on us for the sake of giving viewers some kind of point. While the cast is impressive, none of the movie’s episodes are as provocative as the filmmakers wanted them to be (although Davis and Coon perform a rousing rendition of Heavens to Betsy’s “axemen” may be the exception). Although it tries to form some kind of epiphany, in the end Izzy just fizzles.