When I'm a Moth

Timlin is terrific, showing us a wonk and political animal in the making — focused, unintimidated and kind of fearless, a young woman traveling solo to the roughest corner of the country for smelly, disgusting work with the hardened souls who perform it.

Every so often, a motion picture comes around that’s so dreadful you wonder what prompted anyone to want to waste their time making it and your time watching it to such a degree. When I’m a Moth holds that dubious distinction.

Timlin bears a good-enough resemblance, and gives as much of a rounded performance as she can. But this conception provides no insight into any real HRC, past or present, and seems trite even as a fictionalized act of hostility toward whatever she represents to the filmmakers. Which is, in a word, murky.

The best that can be said about When I’m a Moth is that it is not lurid, although it does seem pointless.