Pop Culture Archives - Page 31 of 56

Tuesday

28

January 2020

Sundance Review: Uncle Frank

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis, and Peter Macdissi appear in Uncle Frank by Alan Ball, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Brownie Harris.

Gay movies are often pretty sad. Gay history is often pretty depressing stuff, full of people who were persecuted for the crime of loving another individual. American culture has largely moved past the darkest era, though LGBTQ equality is far from complete, leaving a complicated legacy for filmmakers to approach.

As a period piece set in the 70s, Uncle Frank is a film that takes place long before gay people had anything resembling human rights. To make matters worse for its title character, growing up in rural South Carolina set the clock back even further. Even to this day, LGBTQ people are forced to consider whether coming out will destroy any chance at prosperity.

The film splits its time between dual protagonists. Frank (Paul Bettany) is a professor at NYU, living a happy, fairly normal life with his boyfriend Wally (Peter Macdissi). Much of the narrative is told through the perspective of Frank’s niece Beth (Sophia Lillis), a freshman at the university who Frank rescued from a small-town fate she was hardly destined for. To Beth, Frank is just about the only relative who understands her.

Writer and director Alan Ball has been immersed in gay storytelling for decades, possessing a keen ability to break subtle new ground in the genre. Six Feet Under portrayed its gay characters with dignity and grace long before most TV shows felt comfortable in their terrain. With Uncle Frank, Ball plays quite a bit of revisionist history, but the approach works pretty well.

Gay people deserve happy stories. Uncle Frank isn’t a narrative concerned with misery, though there’s plenty of it to go around. Bettany plays Frank with a chip on his shoulder, a kind man hardened by the cruel world around him. Macdissi is a force of nature as Wally, an utterly ridiculous character for the 1970s. Wally comes from Saudia Arabia, though he possesses a progressive sense of goodwill straight out of the 2010s. Wally’s charm is infectious, well worth the required suspension of disbelief.

The film occasionally stumbles through its narrative, a second act that circles the runway a bit too long while waiting for its ending. The source of Frank’s demons is a bit predictable. Ball is also often unsure what to do with Beth for large chunks of the second half.

Margo Martindale basically saves the film with a touching performance as Frank’s mother. Uncle Frank functions mostly as a period piece that ignores the history it doesn’t want to touch, a heartwarming narrative for gay people who want to move on from the past. The film succeeds most when it reminds its audience of the ways that people can surprise you even when you think you’ve got them figured out.

By no means a perfect journey, Uncle Frank is a powerful tear-jerker. LGBTQ people are too often forced to live our lives in fear of losing a basic sense of acceptance. Ball’s film unabashedly celebrates the joys of being out. It’s a little far-fetched, but a narrative fitting for a group of people who don’t get to see the pleasure of being gay reflected on screen very much.

Tuesday

28

January 2020

0

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Sundance Review: Kajillionaire

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger appear in Kajillionaire by Miranda July, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Matt Kennedy.

Plenty of films feature villains whose entire villainy is based on the lack of love they received from their parents. If love is all, what are we without it? Kajillionaire doesn’t seek to vilify its characters while exploring what happens when families operate without an ounce of affection.

Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) are two con artists who grift their way through life with their twenty-six-year-old daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood). They live in squalor in a dilapidated office space adjacent to a chemical plant. Every afternoon the plant drips mountains of foam into their living space, requiring the three to schedule their day of schemes around cleaning up the mess. It’s a sad life to say the least.

An airplane encounter with a young woman named Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) changes their group dynamic quite a bit. Theresa and Robert bond with the eager thrillseeker, much to Old Dolio’s dismay. The affection they give Melanie stands in stark contrast to the transactional nature of their relationship.

Part of the beauty of Kajillionaire lies in the shamelessness of its leads. They’re not completely soulless, but the kind of awful people who manage to lie, rob, and steal on a daily basis without ever feeling remorse for their actions. The grift is their whole life, always in search of a con that’ll keep their landlord off their back for a few more weeks.

Writer and director Miranda July slowly unpacks the broader themes about love and affection. The narrative moves at a casual pace, not in any rush to get to its destination. July never lets the heavy stuff get in the way of the fun.

The acting is superb. Winger, Jenkins, and Wood are a very believable, highly dysfunctional family. Rodriguez’s Melanie is a little more preposterous, but she gives the character enough depth that she doesn’t end up feeling like a plot device. None of the characters are particularly likable. You root for them to the extent that one wants a class-clown to get away with pulling a prank on the teacher.

Kajillionaire is largely a film about human nature. Can people ever change? That kind of metaphysical question doesn’t lend itself to an easy answer, but July doesn’t try to force contrived findings upon the audience. It’s more a character study piece, perhaps one that didn’t publish its findings just yet.

The plot of the film has a pretty narrow scope, oddly reflective of the characters’ own lives. They don’t have goals or ambitions behind living to the next day. Growth for Old Dolio carries a steep learning curve, a simple hug opening up far too many doors.

Kajillionaire is a peculiar journey full of laughter that isn’t always quite sure if it’s heading in the right direction. It’s an uncomfortably sweet narrative. With a great script and excellent lead performances, the film is one that will certainly keep you thinking after the credits roll.

Monday

27

January 2020

1

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Wendy

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

A still from Wendy by Benh Zeitlin, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The story of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is a timeless narrative, a tempting tale for ambitious directors to try to tackle. Benh Zeitlin made a big first impression with his delightful Beasts of the Southern Wild, an ambitious indie that packed an emotional punch. With Wendy, Zeitlin aims for the stars, often forgetting what direction to fly in.

Wendy (Devin France) is an imaginative young girl who enjoys playing by the train tracks next to her mother’s diner with her two older brothers (Gage Naquin and Gavin Naquin). One night, the three find themselves whisked away to Neverland by a very young Peter (Ahmad Cage). This Neverland is a peculiar place, more like purgatory than paradise.

Zeitlin is quite skilled at turning each scene into an individual artistic moment. Wendy is an absolutely beautiful film. Largely filmed in the Caribbean, the cinematography provides visual overload time and time again.

The film doesn’t really use a conventional narrative. It’s a meditative work, mostly concerned with the soul-sucking nature of aging. The characters behave in fantastical fashions, but the film is a quieter take on Pan.

The young cast is quite talented, working with a script that often sounds like it was written by a college freshman obsessed with their first philosophy class. The script is a one-trick pony, uninterested in anything resembling normal human interaction. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if the plot knew how to do anything other than meander along at a glacier-slow pace.

For a while, the film is pretty fun. Zeitlin throws the kids into some pretty outlandish scenarios. It feels good to be in Neverland, until the place starts looking like a post-apocalyptic dump in a clunky transition.

The first half works far better than the second. Wendy is a beautiful yet completely empty experience. Pleasing to the eyes with nothing for the soul. It’s a sad shame of a movie, one with so much obvious potential that can’t find a way to connect to the audience.

Zeitlin doesn’t really have an answer for what to do with Peter, wasting the character by putting him in a position that struggles to justify his presence at all. It may be titled Wendy, but Peter often feels weirdly irrelevant. Cage brings a lot of intrigue to the role, but the film rarely channels his energy.

Wendy is also way too long for its own good. With a runtime of close to two hours, the film runs out of steam long before its end. Zeitlin clearly has some points to make about the nature of aging, framing young and old in a weird black-and-white manner. He struggles to convey them in a way that would translate to an audience already bored by his antics.

There are other smaller issues with the pacing and the uncomfortable ways Zeitlin tries to move the plot forward. Some of it is just plain gross. The cinematography and the narrative exist on two separate planes, banging into each other like waves on the beaches of Neverland.

Wendy has so much potential as a film. It’s so beautiful and well acted, made by a director with a keen sense for detail. Almost all the pieces line up, but there’s a gaping hole in the middle that brings the whole thing crashing down. Most disappointing.

Monday

27

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Herself

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Clare Dunne and Molly McCann appear in Herself by Phyllida Lloyd, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Herself is a film constantly wrestling with the concept of hope. No one wants to be defined by the single worst event in their lives, but reality has a way of forcing that dreadful nightmare down one’s throat. Money, children, and housing all complicate the idea of starting over, the stink of the past clinging like a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe.

The film follows an Irish mother Sandra (Clare Dunne) in the wake of a horrific beating from her husband Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), who breaks her hand and gives her a black eye for trying to escape his clutches with their two young daughters. Sandra and the girls are placed in government housing, but Gary retains visitation rights. Even from afar, the monster retains a degree of power over Sandra’s life.

Seeking a more stable living arrangement, Sandra seeks to build a small home. While the government cares little for Sandra’s efforts to move off their assistance, her employer Peggy (Harriet Walter) steps in to graciously offer unused land in her backyard. Lost in the world of construction, she enlists the help of Aidi (Conleth Hill), a cranky old contractor, to help build her dream home.

The cast is pretty top-to-bottom solid, providing many feel good moments throughout the film. Molly McCann and Ruby Rose O’Hara shine as Sandra’s very young daughters, working with mature material. There are a bunch of minor characters who don’t receive much development, but the ensemble works well in the group moments.

Dunne carries the bulk of the narrative’s emotional weight. As the title suggests, Herself is a film about a woman striving for independence in a world that’s been anything but kind. Sandra is well-written, strong-willed but not stubborn. She asks for help when she needs it.

The film is a damning indictment of Ireland’s judicial system, one that allows Gary too much agency for an abusive creep. Anderson does a great job with Gary, giving a hate-inducing performance that gets under your skin.

Director Phyllida Lloyd manages the story well, frequently playing with the emotional tempo. Herself is a safe story that hits all the right notes. It rules over the strings with heavy hands, enjoyable yet predictable.

For this kind of material, that’s not really a bad thing. Sandra is a strong, inspiring character. Herself isn’t the most memorable film in the world, but one that works far more often than it doesn’t.

Monday

27

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Slamdance Review: Maxima

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Photo credit: Slamdance

It’s not difficult to understand the appeal of underdog narratives, which trace as far back as storytelling itself. There’s an inherent reliability in the plight of “David vs. Goliath” situations, people up against unthinkable odds. Documentaries like Maxima walk the same path, except with very real stakes at hand. As uplifting as it is to see people standing up for themselves, it is often quite difficult to see the hardships that are endured in the process. verify with the air conditioner service in vadodara

Máxima Acuña is a simple farmer with a big piece of land in the Peruvian Andes. On the surface, the terrain she calls home doesn’t seem like all that much. She’s able to grow some crops and raise some animals, but it’s a difficult life in a region rife with poverty. She needs her land to survive.

Máxima’s property, close to a lake, is under siege from the American-owned Newmont Mining Operation. The Peruvian Andes are home to plenty of gold that Newmont wants, spending billions of dollars to uproot the region in search of its precious commodity. Illegally occupying Máxima’s land, Newmont has been harassing her since 2011, a case that still hasn’t seen justice.

As a documentary, Maxima is quite effective at explaining the stakes at hand. The film includes some expert commentary on the nature of foreign mining operations to exploit land. Their corrupt practices are fully laid out, demonstrating the seeming sense of hopelessness that many feel against such powerful leviathans.

Newmont destroys Máxima’s crops and kills her animals. The local government doesn’t seem to care. The courts generally support Máxima’s position, but she’s forced to seek justice in the American legal system because of the shortcomings of the Peruvian government.

The documentary serves as a powerful indictment of the flaws in the legal system. Despite the many occasions that Newmont is shown to be in the wrong, they persist, both on Máxima’s land and in appeals courts. Máxima has the help of lawyers eager to fight on her behalf, but American nonprofits can’t stop a mining conglomerate from ripping up crops on her land in Peru.

The film also exposes the smaller-scale problems with the justice system. Court dates are frequently pushed back and rulings can take months, if not years. For people like Máxima, who have to walk seven hours to the nearest courthouse, these delays have real-time ramifications, time wasted and spirits crushed.

Máxima is a compelling lead figure who has inspired many to protest the injustice she’s faced. She’s not out to change the world, only to stop a company that wants to pillage her home. Maxima is a powerful story of resiliency, a finely crafted documentary that thoroughly explains the stakes at hand from both a political and a human perspective.

Monday

27

January 2020

1

COMMENTS

Slamdance Review: Shoot to Marry

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Photo credit: Andrew Hunt

What’s the best way to find true love? Entire industries are dedicated to pursuing that elusive answer. Director Steve Markle took an unusual approach to the question, filming the documentary Shoot to Marry as an effort to move past a failed proposal.

The film has a fairly simple plot. Markle reaches out to women he finds interesting and flies to their city to interview them. The interviews tend not to focus much on the women, often to their annoyance, but rather Markle’s own musings. It’s a fairly silly premise, but one that he commits to quite well.

Markle has a gift for comedy. Shoot to Marry aims for laughs more than enlightenment, a hilarious narrative that never takes itself too seriously. Markle is very self-deprecating, completely owning the film’s bizarre premise. The story of his break-up is told in vivid detail, a tragic event that obviously made a big impact on his life.

There are some that may find the nature of Markle’s deception off-putting on the surface, though it’s hard to say there’s ever a point where he paints his subjects in a negative light that takes advantage of them. The documentary does grapple with this subject, delivering a satisfying outcome. He’s a weird, lonely man with a seemingly good heart able to craft a narrative out of his quirks. It’s quite an impressive feat.

Markle also knows when less is more. The film’s seventy-seven-minute runtime is an asset, not letting the narrative overstay his welcome. Though he’s not forthcoming with why he’s interviewing women, he does present full portraits of those who agreed to be in the film, essentially delivering the outcome he initially promised them.

Though the film does at times struggle with what exactly it’s about, Markle does manage to introduce some food for thought to his audience. Shoot to Marry is a unique film. You may not learn a whole lot watching a grown man fly around North America to film women with the off chance that one might be attracted to him, but it’s a worthwhile experience. Few documentaries manage as many laughs as Markle achieved.

Monday

27

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Slamdance Review: Queen of the Capital

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Photo credit: Josh Davidsburg

Years ago, the idea that drag culture would someday enter the mainstream seemed fairly absurd, much like most of the tremendous progress that the LGBTQ community has made. For some, drag is a fun way to spend an evening. Others have built their entire communities around drag, finding family when their biological ones have turned them away. The documentary Queen of the Capital showcases the way that drag has served as the pillar of a gay community in Washington, D.C.

Daniel Hays works for the Department of Labor, a stable government job that provides a decent life. That’s not his true calling. Hays’ drag persona Muffy Blake Stephyns has a thick Southern accent and hair that stretches to the heavens.

Queen of the Capital largely centers around Muffy’s quest to be elected “Empress IV” of the Imperial Court of Washington, a nonprofit made up of drag kings and queens largely centered around charity work. Campaigning for the Court is no easy task, as those elected are expected to serve as fundraising powerhouse for the group for their one-year term. Naturally, there’s a fair amount of pageantry involved as the film depicts.

Muffy is a compelling protagonist for the documentary. Daniel shares a lot about his personal life, from his time as a drag performer to the health issues and depression he’s faced along the way. For Daniel, drag is the center of his whole world.

The film also spends time explaining the history of the Court and various figures who helped cement its status in D.C. This aspect of the documentary is particularly compelling, a strong reminder of how far gay rights and acceptance has come in this country. It really wasn’t all that long ago when men could be arrested for wearing women’s underwear.

Queen of the Capital is an intimate kind of documentary. Muffy is not a household name by any means. The scope of the film drives home the familial bonds of drag communities. You don’t need to know who Muffy is to feel warm inside at the loving nature of the Court that cares for its own.

The appeal of the documentary largely rests of how you feel about drag as a whole. Fans of drag will find much to enjoy in the narrative’s way of bringing out the humanity of the artform. Skeptics will likely not find much to sway their minds. The Court isn’t a very big charity, either in its membership or its fundraising power. Despite this, Queen of the Capital manages to present a compelling narrative through the caring lens it shines on the nature of drag to bring people together.

Sunday

26

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Wander Darkly

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Sienna Miller and Diego Luna appear in Wander Darkly by Tara Miele, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Carolina Costa.

Relationships are built on a sequence of events, moments that sometimes feel trivial, or others that subtly build upon each other. Romantic hardships are rarely singular occurrences, often smaller disputes that gather steam until the lid is blown off. Wander Darkly breaks down the timeline of a partnership, after a tragic accident changed everything.

Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) have been together a long time, with plenty of rough patches along the way. A date night car accident throws Adrienne into a disoriented trance of memories. Her life hanging in the balance, she finds a home in her own thoughts.

Wander Darkly blends reality and the dream, memory of an odyssey through the blurry realm of truth. The film is mostly made up of a loose timeline of Adrienne and Matteo’s relationship, revisiting their pivotal moments and others that possess an understated significance. Adrienne often doesn’t understand why she’s been brought to these memories, but the sequences play with elegance, a certain theological underscore.

The narrative feels like it’s playing out in purgatory, but Wander Darkly is a celebration of life, hardships and all. To have lost is to have had, a perspective easily taken for granted. Purgatory paints imagery of judgement, a higher power determining one’s eternal fate. The same kind of dynamic exists with relationships as well, moments where you can either forgive or go your separate ways.

Director Tara Miele has a keen sense for depicting anxiety. The camera angles often paint the picture, with the characters themselves lost in the moment. Miele’s pacing heightens the emotion resonance, never lingering too long in a scene.

Miller and Luna carry the film through its esoteric voyage. They play eminently convincing partners, a difficult feat especially through the time-jumping structure of the narrative. Miller communicates Adrienne’s pain in a way that makes you want to reach out and comfort her. Matteo is the kind of boyfriend who’s probably not a good fit for a life partner, but the kind of person you stay with because of the way his smile makes you feel.

Wander Darkly is a difficult film at times, constantly forcing the audience to relocate its footing as the film jumps around. It’s far from a passive experience, and one that’s probably best suited to multiple viewings. Just as you think you’ve got a scene figured out, another twist is thrown in your face.

The film is a bit rough around the edges from a plot perspective. Wander Darkly is more about the experience than the story, but the story hits some turbulence when it’s time to start the landing. To a certain extent that’s supposed to be the point, as the characters are on a pretty rough journey.

Wander Darkly is a wild ride. The acting is superb and the storytelling never stops throwing curveballs at the audience. There are more romantic films out there than anyone can count, but Miele’s film carves out a mind-blowing niche for itself.

Saturday

25

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Falling

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Lance Henriksen and Viggo Mortensen appear in Falling by Viggo Mortensen, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Brendan Adam-Zwelling.

Far too many members of the LGBTQ community know what it’s like to have parents who won’t accept them for who they are. Falling is a film about long-frayed familial bonds, featuring a father suffering from dementia with many sins beyond simply being a homophobe. Pulling double duty as director and lead actor, Viggo Mortensen struggles to make a compelling case for why the audience should care about a dying hateful man.

John (Mortensen) lives a pretty decent life. He has a loving husband Eric (Terry Chen), and a happy daughter Monica (Gabby Velis). His happy home is disrupted by the arrival of his father Willis (Lance Henriksen), whose illness forces him to abandon his beloved New York ranch in favor of California.

Mortensen blurs the lines between past and present, frequently changing timelines as he tells the story of this troubled family. In the present day, Willis is racist, sexist, homophobic, and a bully. In the past, he’s mostly just a bully, a terrible husband and father. After a while, you get the sense that the only thing stopping him from making slurs in the past is the lack of suitable object for his hate.

Falling might be the best performance of Henriksen’s career, but the film substitutes narrative for a relentless obsession with slurs. It’s not simply excessive, it’s the entire movie. The script is so fixated on making sure that Willis utters obscenities with every other sentence that it’s impossible to care about him as a character. Despite a runtime bordering on two hours, there isn’t much of a plot. The film is mostly just about a bigoted old man and the family who, for some reason, hasn’t left him to die on his own.

The film holds back on exploring Gwen (Hannah Gross), John’s mother and Willis’ first wife. Gwen suffered much humiliation from Willis, some of it public, but the film doesn’t bother exploring her as a character. Like John, she’s mostly there to be abused by Willis.

The acting is top-notch. Laura Linney puts forth a strong supporting effort at Sarah, John’s sister in a minor role. Sverrir Gudnason does a great job portraying the younger Willis. Mortensen doesn’t really try to dig deeper into his characters, showing snippets of Willis’ life bookended by his awful behavior.

The film doesn’t really try totie itself together until late in the third act. By then it’s too hard to care. You can kind of feel for John’s predicament, but it’s just an empty experience to watch. There’s little redemption to be found in any of the character’s interactions. This is John’s burden, but it’s unclear why the audience would want to follow along.

Falling is a well-crafted mess of a movie. Mortensen’s directorial debut shows promise, but there’s a gaping hole in the middle where a story should be. Blood might be thicker than water, but few people could be bothered to care about an awful, worthless bigot like Willis. Film has better stories to tell.

Saturday

25

January 2020

1

COMMENTS

Slamdance Review: Thunderbolt In Mine Eye

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Photo courtesy of the Slamdance Film Festival

High school is a pivotal time for many American adolescents, a period when many experience their first whiffs of freedom outside their parents’ looming eyes. Young people’s initial tastes of sex, weed, and alcohol often leads to cringe-worthy memories, which some might say is an important part of growing up.

Thunderbolt in Mine Eye captures a first awkward first for two young high-school students. Harper (Anjini Taneja Azhar) is a freshman with a good group of friends and loving adoptive parents. She starts a relationship with her neighbor Tilly (Quinn Liebling), who’s also a close friend of her brother Adam (Alex Jarmon). The politics of teenage relationships naturally proves a bit troublesome for Harper, exacerbated by rumors that have a habit of finding their way through high school corridors.

The film does an excellent job of portraying a snippet of its character’s lives, representative of the era itself. Directors Sarah Sherman and Zachary Ray Sherman have a firm grasp of high school culture. One’s teenage years may be a formative time for many, but it’s by no means definitive. Young love rarely translates into lifelong love, nor does it need to.

What’s particularly impressive about the narrative is the realistic way it unfolds. The characters behave largely as you’d expect them to. As with any plot, some antagonists are required, mostly in the form of predictable nasty classmates, but the conflicts feel natural. If you neglect your friendships in favor of a significant other, you’re bound to get a bit of cold shoulder. That’s life.

The young stars are very talented. Azhar and Liebling have a natural sense of chemistry, highly believable in their puppy love. Both actors are quite gifted at drawing out quiet moments of brilliance in their scenes, comfortable in the awkward nature of many of the scenarios. The film recognizes that much of its audience has been in its characters’ shoes, not needing to oversell the emotion.

The film also deserves credit for keeping technology out of the narrative as much as possible. Phones are sadly a major component of high school life these days, a breeding ground for FOMO and its associated anxieties. The film includes a couple scenes of text messaging, but it stakes its ground in the humanity of its characters.

Thunderbolt in Mine Eye captures the spirit of teenage angst, a refreshing narrative that celebrates the subtleties of an awkward era. High school doesn’t have to define anyone, but in real time it often feels that way. The mature young cast are an absolute treat to watch. Sherman and Sherman have crafted quite an impressive film.

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