Reno Finds Her Mom . Austin Chronicle . 03-30-98

Reno Finds Her Mom

DIRECTED BY: Lydia Dean Pilcher

REVIEWED: 03-30-98

The title says it all. Comedian Reno is on a search to find her birth mother and drags cameras into the quest. Reno, with her trademark blonde hair and black roots, is advised by an acquaintance shrink that she can't figure out who she really is unless she discovers where she came from - a piece of therapy that convinces this charmingly abrasive performer that the only roots she really has are entwined around the woman who gave her up, not the mother who raised her. While it is disturbing to watch Reno dismiss her parents in search of a more exotic heritage, the trappings of which she wears like a new-found hat, it is also scary to watch the hell she has to go through to uncover information that should be readily available and hysterical to watch the almost constantly talking Reno crack wise about the tediousness and frustrations of her search. But it is her birth mother who poses the most potent question of all: Does Reno really need to close this issue or does she just need to be the star of a film?

Reno Finds Her Mom was paired with "Two or Three Things But Nothing For Sure," a touching short directed by two of Reno's producers, Tina DiFeliciantonio and Jane Wagner, and based on the life and work of Dorothy Allison (Bastard Out of Carolina). The film uses soft, selective focus to illustrate a gripping monologue by Allison about her harrowing childhood.

--Adrienne Martini

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