‘Austin Found’ Offers A Darker Take on Media Frenzy

Elizabeth Stanton

With a plot that shockingly hasn’t happened in the real world, “Austin Found” tells an excellent story of a desperate, attention-hungry woman who will try to justify any means necessary to get what she wants.

Linda Cardellini stars as Leanne Wilson, a pageant mom who pushes her daughter Patty (Ursula Parker) into the spotlight every chance she gets. Patty isn’t really into the pageant world and all the activities she’s scheduled for, but Leanne is convinced the little girl is destined for stardom. Leanne and her family are strapped for cash, and an accident leaves her unable to work, further threatening their financial status. When she spots media reports about a missing girl who was found, she gets a wonderful, terrible idea. She decides to fake her daughter’s kidnapping with her old high school boyfriend, Billy (Skeet Ulrich), and soak up the fame and book deals to financial success. But as Billy grows more and more jealous of her husband, and a reporter, (Kristen Schaal), smells a rat, Leanne’s perfect plan starts to unravel to a dark conclusion.

Leanne is a fascinating and believable character, and Cardellini plays her so well. She is a typical pageant mom, not out of place on “Toddlers and Tiaras,” who manipulates her redneck ex-boyfriend into helping in her plot. But she’s not dumb, and she shows her media savvy throughout the movie as she pulls out perfect pictures of Patty in all her JonBenet glory to maximize sympathy and book deals. Leanne does love her daughter, but she loves money and attention more than she realizes until she embarks on her twisted plan. A scene of her going through media clippings shows her full range, from smiling at the Time magazine cover to genuinely tearing up over her “missing” daughter’s photo to smiling wide at the TV when she sees the latest report with her front and center. Cardelini nails all these switches in emotion and does an excellent job of portraying her as someone who thought her life would be different, and thinks her extreme plan is the only way to achieve it. It’s also a role that seems slightly against type for her, as she’s usually a more compassionate and likable character in other projects.

Kristen Schall also has a chance in this movie to do something very different with her role as a disgraced reporter and former high school classmate of Leanne’s. She ditches all the quirks she’s usually known for — acting weird, using a strange baby voice, bugging her eyes out — and plays her reporter character as a natural person who suspects Leanne’s ulterior motives. It would be nice to see Schaal play more straight forward characters like this, even though she’s always an ace on the comedy front.

‘Austin’ clearly intends to be a comedy, particularly in casting Jaime Pressly, Craig Robinson, Chris Parnell, Jon Daly and Patrick Warburton in major and minor roles, but the film ends up subtler and darker than perhaps it originally intended. There are definitely laughs throughout the film, but they’re more of a quiet acknowledgement of our crazy media hype over missing little white girls and less laugh out loud moments. The final product is almost more akin to “Gone Girl”, but several shades lighter in tone and plot, with a suitably biting conclusion for Leanne.

Ultimately, “Austin Found” aims to criticize our obsession with money, media and fame, and succeeds in quiet ways, with a believable plot and characters that could easily pop up on Dateline at any time.

“Austin Found” opens in theaters July 7.