coming of age

Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas

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With Electrick Children, a new filmmaker has created an entirely unique teen coming of age story.  Electrick Children employs an element of magical realism that requires the audience to accept a premise which cannot be real.  The result is a highly original success.

A 15-year-old Utah girl has been raised in a remote fundamentalist Mormon enclave where everyone dresses as 19th century pioneers.  She has been immersed in Bible stories, but hasn’t been exposed to any modern culture or to the facts of life.  She happens upon a hidden cassette tape and finds her first rock and roll song revelatory – so revelatory that she thinks that the song has moved her to pregnancy.  Here comes the magical realism – she really is a virgin, and she really is pregnant.

Because of her faith, she doesn’t find immaculate conception to be the least bit implausible.  Not so with her parents, who wrongly blame her 17-year-old brother.  Their answer is to kick the boy out of the home and to marry off the girl to a neighboring fundamentalist.  Facing the unwanted shotgun wedding, the girl commandeers the family pickup and flees; her brother, seeking a way to prove his innocence, stows away.

The kids surface in Las Vegas, where they fall in with a band of runaway teens.   Of course the Mormon kids are completely unprepared to navigate any modern city, let alone Vegas.  Their guides, the more streetwise kids, are more comfortable with the glitz and sleaze of Vegas, but are just as untethered.  The Mormon kids and the suburban runaways have life-altering adventures on the streets.

The girl embarks on a quest to find the singer who she thinks has fathered her child, not understanding that there is more than one rock band in the world (or that Blondie’s Hanging on the Telephone has not made her pregnant.)  Central to the film’s success is that the girl is naive but never silly.  The young actress Julia Garner shines in a performance that is never ironic and always completely sincere.  The girl is determined and devout, seeking teen independence in ways that are logical for someone with her isolated upbringing.

As good as Garner is, the real talent here is writer-director Rebecca Thomas, a Mormon from Nevada with an MFA from Columbia.  This is her first feature film, and I can’t wait for her next one.

DVD of the Week: The Paperboy

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Set in 1969 Florida, The Paperboy is a coming of age film nestled within a deliciously pulpy crime drama.  The story is centered around an overlooked younger son (talented up-and-comer Zac Efron) who is thrilled when his older brother (Matthew McConaughey) returns to their swampy backwater after making it in the big time of Miami.  The older brother is an investigative reporter who seeks the truth about a sensational death row case.

The strength of the film is in the supporting characters.  David Oyelowo plays the older brother’s cynical and self-absorbed partner.  John Cusack’s death row inmate is utterly animalistic, a real departure for Cusack.  Nicole Kidman plays the convict’s pen pal fiance; the younger brother falls for her, but she’s apparently screwing everyone except him.

But the surprise performance in The Paperboy is by recording artist Macy Gray, who plays the family domestic.  With complete authenticity, Gray is playful, hurt, dignified, angry, funny, tough, cagy and vulnerable and, as the narrator, she keeps the movie together.  It’s a really superb performance, and I look forward to seeing Gray in more high profile parts.

This is director Lee Daniels’ follow up to his heart rending Precious.  Once again, his  character driven story-telling is first rate.  The Paperboy is dark, violent, sexy and gripping with vivid characters.

Watch for Kidman’s particularly alarming treatment for jellyfish stings.

Not Fade Away: a pleasant enough coming of age story

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Not Fade Away is a pleasant enough coming of age story by The Sopranos creator David Chase and rocker Steven Van Zandt.  It centers around the life of a 16-year-old’s garage band from 1963 through 1966.  As you would expect from Chase, the movie absolutely nails the look and feel of each year of the dynamic period – a treat for Boomers.  The protagonist’s generation gap with his father (James Gandolfini) climaxes in a poignant encounter in which the dad reveals a secret to his son – the only way he can find to forge a bond.  Van Zandt wrote songs for the band, along with a hilarious advertising jingle for a medical supply company.  But, other than that, it’s a fairly unremarkable film.

The Paperboy: a trashy Nicole Kidman and a canny Macy Gray

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Set in 1969 Florida, The Paperboy is a coming of age film nestled within a deliciously pulpy crime drama.  The story is centered around an overlooked younger son (talented up-and-comer Zac Efron) who is thrilled when his older brother (Matthew McConaughey) returns to their swampy backwater after making it in the big time of Miami.  The older brother is an investigative reporter who seeks the truth about a sensational death row case.

The strength of the film is in the supporting characters.  David Oyelowo plays the older brother’s cynical and self-absorbed partner.  John Cusack’s death row inmate is utterly animalistic, a real departure for Cusack.  Nicole Kidman plays the convict’s pen pal fiance; the younger brother falls for her, but she’s apparently screwing everyone except him.

But the surprise performance in The Paperboy is by recording artist Macy Gray, who plays the family domestic.  With complete authenticity, Gray is playful, hurt, dignified, angry, funny, tough, cagy and vulnerable and, as the narrator, she keeps the movie together.  It’s a really superb performance, and I look forward to seeing Gray in more high profile parts.

This is director Lee Daniels’ follow up to his heart rending Precious.  Once again, his  character driven story-telling is first rate.  The Paperboy is dark, violent, sexy and gripping with vivid characters.

Watch for Kidman’s particularly alarming treatment for jellyfish stings.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower: authenticity in a coming of age story

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In a fine movie debut, Stephen Chbosky directs the screen version of his novel.  A shy high school freshman in 1991 is adopted by two unapologetically misfit seniors, played by Harry Potter’s Emma Watson and Ezra Miller (very different here than in We Need to Talk About Kevin).  The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming of age story, and a very good one. We’ve all experienced adolescence, so my test for a film in this genre is whether the moments of adolescent awkwardness, peer obsession, self-doubt and discovery feel real.  I felt that authenticity with Perks.  In addition, the story is textured and unpredictable, and the performances – especially those by Watson and Miller –  are excellent.

Turn Me On, Dammit!: wise, sympathetic and funny

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Alma is pushing 16 and lives in rural Norway, in a tiny community so remote that her mom works in a turnip factory.  Her hormones have been unleashed, and she can think of nothing but sex.  She spends her free time having poignantly innocent (and incomplete) sexual fantasies, masturbating and running up phone sex bills.  Her schoolmates misinterpret her encounter with a boy and ostracize her as the village slut.  So begins this wise, sympathetic and funny Norwegian coming of age comedy.

The humor comes from the film’s knowing view of human nature and, especially, of teenagers.  One of Alma’s pals aspires to move to Texas and end capital punishment by raising awareness.  For another, no amount of lip gloss can be enough.  None of them can figure out how to pilot their budding urges without embarrassing awkwardness.  And all the while, Alma’s beleaguered mom tries to figure out what to do with her.

The laughs are mostly chuckles instead of guffaws.  Turn Me On, Dammit! is only 76 minutes of long, which is just the right length for this story.  It’s a good-hearted and funny movie.