dianeseattle
Member
If you have Netflix and haven't already seen this movie, I recommend it to you.
It didn't seem to have anything interesting in its description and it was about teenagers, so I expected a lot of hyped-up teenage angst, so I was going to take a pass on it. Then I read some small thing someone posted about it and it sounded reassuring enough that I decided to watch it.
It isn't action-packed and the story is quite ordinary--but then, it's not. The director didn't try to super-dramatize it, and I suppose that's how the writer intended it to be. But in a way, you almost have to be a person who loves books and dreams about writing and celebrates unexpected love in order to stick with it, because where you'd think you'd see a climax, you see something logical and unexciting instead.
But do not be lulled into a false sense of assuredness. When the twist arrives, it is a twisted twist, and from that point until the end, it's riveting. Or at least I sure didn't see it coming and wanted to see how it would--or could--resolve.
So you start out thinking this is about a boy whose suffering trauma because his best friend killed himself the year before, and you expect to see some survivor's guilt or other trauma about that as the story develops. But it turns out that this high school freshman, who's befriended by a bunch of seniors from "The Island of Misfit Toys," is only showing us the tip of the iceberg. And the tip doesn't get much bigger when his trauma over the death of a maternal aunt is revealed. But that's where the floodgates open and from that point on, you understand the reason for the movie.
It's worth mentioning that the two male leads bear momentary flashes of resemblance to Christian Bale and Adam Driver. You won't notice that until you notice it, and then, you notice it bigtime. The female leads are regular, unhysterical young women and they're a pleasure to watch. Everyone in the cast is very believable.
Now, I have long been traumatized by violence to such an extent that I can't watch the same movies and tv shows normal people seem to enjoy. I get too invested and upset. I got this way after 9/11 and I happened to be in Manhattan a few months before that happened. But when it happened, it felt like the end of the world, and that same feeling of doom surrounds me today because of COVID. So take everything I say with a grain of salt because I'm emotionally compromised.
That said, I think this was a great little movie, and the twisted topic at the true center of it is very relevant and important, and it was dealt with realistically.
It didn't seem to have anything interesting in its description and it was about teenagers, so I expected a lot of hyped-up teenage angst, so I was going to take a pass on it. Then I read some small thing someone posted about it and it sounded reassuring enough that I decided to watch it.
It isn't action-packed and the story is quite ordinary--but then, it's not. The director didn't try to super-dramatize it, and I suppose that's how the writer intended it to be. But in a way, you almost have to be a person who loves books and dreams about writing and celebrates unexpected love in order to stick with it, because where you'd think you'd see a climax, you see something logical and unexciting instead.
But do not be lulled into a false sense of assuredness. When the twist arrives, it is a twisted twist, and from that point until the end, it's riveting. Or at least I sure didn't see it coming and wanted to see how it would--or could--resolve.
So you start out thinking this is about a boy whose suffering trauma because his best friend killed himself the year before, and you expect to see some survivor's guilt or other trauma about that as the story develops. But it turns out that this high school freshman, who's befriended by a bunch of seniors from "The Island of Misfit Toys," is only showing us the tip of the iceberg. And the tip doesn't get much bigger when his trauma over the death of a maternal aunt is revealed. But that's where the floodgates open and from that point on, you understand the reason for the movie.
It's worth mentioning that the two male leads bear momentary flashes of resemblance to Christian Bale and Adam Driver. You won't notice that until you notice it, and then, you notice it bigtime. The female leads are regular, unhysterical young women and they're a pleasure to watch. Everyone in the cast is very believable.
Now, I have long been traumatized by violence to such an extent that I can't watch the same movies and tv shows normal people seem to enjoy. I get too invested and upset. I got this way after 9/11 and I happened to be in Manhattan a few months before that happened. But when it happened, it felt like the end of the world, and that same feeling of doom surrounds me today because of COVID. So take everything I say with a grain of salt because I'm emotionally compromised.
That said, I think this was a great little movie, and the twisted topic at the true center of it is very relevant and important, and it was dealt with realistically.
