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Sucker Punch (2011)
Memory Overload...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets Charlies Angels meets Final Fantasy (meets 300) meets Fight Club.
Not sure if this film is an unapproachable mess or a deep genius- inspired masterwork full of symbolism and philosophy. Or both. If its both it still doesn't work as it should, clearly. But what an attempt! It seems to be trying to have a say on several issues but all at once and all symbolically. Surely you don't think most viewers can pick up on all that? Whats real? Who's real? Whats the message and whats the message behind the message? Its a little dizzying and Im pretty sure they don't pull it off. You really need to actually take notes (especially when the narrator(s) talk) to really have a chance at putting it all together. But in the end you are left with extra pieces and things that don't seem to fit. What a ride though!
My Summer of Love (2004)
Not Your Typical Teen Romance Film...
This is a well done clever mind f*** of a film where good actors acting like they are pretending that they are not acting makes for a jarring tense and slightly perplexing climax. Suddenly you doubt everything you've seen and experienced just like Mona does.
There are only three main actors in this movie and honestly you don't even realize it because of the phenomenal jobs they all do, especially Blunt who pulls off being both deceptive and genuine at the same time (sometimes in the same scene!) and Press who blew me away completely by conveying her emotions and feelings generally with such subtlety (simple looks, body language, etc.) that you didn't need any lines at all at times to know exactly where she was emotionally. And Pawlikowski's magical visual story telling approach creates a movie that's beautiful to watch and whose emotions seep through to the audience through the images themselves.
The relationship dynamic between Mona and Tamsin is well conceived. We get a real feeling for how perfect they seem for each other, filling voids that they both have been craving and rejoicing in being partners in crime and taking petty vengeance on the cruel world. In short, they seem to find meaning in each other. Add Mona's born again brother to the mix for Tamsin to play against and you have a fascinating powder keg triangle of desperation and deception (both internal and external) all set to explode at Tamsin's whim. And in the end we feel as much the fool as Mona must. Embarrassed and inadequate and spurned and reeling with confusion. That's the interesting thing about this movie, it really allows you to act as the surrogate for Mona in all her angry petulance and throbbing desperation for love and appreciation. You aren't just watching something unfold, you are actually walking in her shoes, feeling her feelings. And that says something extraordinary about both the actor and the presentation of the film itself. Everything that happens to Mona happens to the audience. And for a time it seems it's the same for Tamsin who seems to have an equally aching need for closeness and appreciation and mutual contemptuous defiance of the unfair world.
But nothing is ever as it seems
Whether we orchestrate it as a great deception or we deceive ourselves through denial of our true nature.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Unique but Unrealistic and Confusing
So its a clever film. With a unique story line. My problem was that I assumed there would be a happy ending to the film pretty much the whole way through (oh they'll find their way back to each other and live happily ever after despite everything!) so a lot of the genuinely sad material in the movie was lost on me (and yes I accept responsibility for that. But I think they want to have this effect based on how they structured the film).
In essence this movie is about two people who realize their relationship is doomed and go through with it anyway until the inevitable end because they are compelled to. And that's the most beautiful part of this film. Nothing can erase their innate attraction to each other. Love is strong enough to defy loss of memory but not strong enough to defy fate (I think. Assuming I got the end correct...)
Now, the problem I have with it is that its unrealistic. They are so completely different in every way on every level, this kind of relationship would never happen in real life. And don't lecture me about "opposites attract". They aren't just opposites, they are whole levels of existence different from each other. Because the relationship seemed so unlikely it was hard for me to accept it as the pillar of the story. And I was kind of dubious the whole time they were together. Like I was watching some day dream he was having about a girl he knew he could never get with.
And then when memories start becoming a feature of the film it got terribly confusing for me. What was real. What was true. what was going on. I needed to really get to the very end to get all the pieces and then I had to piece it back together and in the course of doing that I missed a lot of the emotional significance of many of the scenes. This one would really benefit from an immediate rewatch but I honestly have no desire to go through it again (felt exactly the same way about Memento for similar reasons).
In the end Im still not sure of the central message of the film. Is it in fact that love is deeper than memory or is it more a statement about the inevitable corruption of trying to use artificial means to free ourselves of emotional discomfort? Perhaps the latter was just a plot device to emphasize the former?
Perhaps Shakespeare sums up this movie best: tis better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all...
Ang-ma-reul bo-at-da (2010)
Long shockingly violent thriller
Went into this movie not knowing too much about it other than it was a revenge film and it was a little bloody. After watching it I must say this is one of the most gruesome violent movies I've ever seen. Now Im no anti gore prude, but to me violence and gore need to fit into the movie contextually. Not just exist for the sake of shock value. And there are times in this movie where it seemed to be over the top to the point of gratuitous absurdity. I mean did we really need a cannibal too? And its not some campy cheesy horror flick, its meant to be a deadly serious drama/thriller which makes the violence stand out even more.
But if you can deal with the most extreme levels of gruesome violence imaginable, you might find this enjoyable. Its definitely suspenseful at times. But I do think it goes on much too long (the catch and release thing gets a little ridiculous) and the debilitatingly violent things that happen to certain characters to the point where they should really be in a wheel chair or in traction for weeks or need their skull pieced back together again but are up and about and being violent again shortly after, is just too much to take seriously after a while. Imagine a real serious bloody version of Home Alone where the criminals keep getting hurt by the kids traps only to get back up, moaning and groaning and happen all over again minutes later. Its a little much... and it undermines the hunting aspect of the film which is the long middle portion. The cat and mouse stuff at the end (when the psycho gets the upper hand and the chase is on again) is entertaining and clever but at that point you are just so overwhelmed with the previous 2 hours of dark depraved brutality in repetition, that its hard to truly enjoy it. And the end is a little confusing.
Nevertheless, it is definitely thrilling and intense and gripping for a lot of its run. And if you enjoy gore and go into it knowing this is really a drama with a VERY bloody gory movie wrapped inside of it, you might find it worth while.
The Dead Girl (2006)
Chilling, Saddening but Fantastic
Wow this was really a powerful film. I went into it not knowing what to expect. I came out completely touched and completely entertained. The film consists of a series of segments that tie together the central story about "The Dead Girl". Each segment's primary focus is on a particular female character and how circumstances have effected them. Each segment is dark and introspective. This movie is NOT a thriller and if you cant handle purposeful reflective pace. Some would call it "slow" but I never found the movie dragging at all even when minutes go by without a word of dialog. It was too tense and you were always trying to figure out how everything pieced together and the complex meanings and symbologies behind so much of it. Its a complex film and it doesn't go out of its way to inform you what everything means or how everything comes together. I liked that. It left me with a thousand questions but at the same time feeling completely fulfilled. Thats rare in my experience. The viewer should be left interested enough to wonder about the details but not left confused and angry because there are gaps. And this movie pulls that off perfectly.
As good as the writing is for this film, the acting is flawless across the board. You have a series of segments where the "main character" is dead throughout most of it so there's never any primary focus for the audience throughout the film. Instead we are given one in each segment but because they (mostly) don't overlap segments you see all the actors fairly equally and it allows them all to shine. I truly cannot think of one character that I wasn't completely impressed with. Marcia Gay Harden was especially moving as the mother of The Dead Girl. She has a scene that I found so heartwrechingly well done that I could not contain my tears but I could not look away at the same time. Rose Byrne is also moving as The Sister. You can feel her torment like its painted on your skin when you watch her segment. And Kerry Washington was just terrific as well. All the acting was just stellar and honestly I cant remember a movie in my adult life where I actually came away noting that.
If there's one drawback to the movie its that its at times unbearably depressing and dark and heartbreaking. You go from one troubled soul to the next without let up. And for me it ALMOST got to the point of being too much but Moncrieff pulled it out of a permanent depressive nose dive by weaving in hope and symbolism where there is only horror and darkness. She gives relief in the form of human connection in almost every vignette.
So really a great film. Not sure how it went so under the radar or wasn't nominated for anything significant. I love that it forces us to wonder about the story behind what we are seeing on the screen. I love how it doesn't give us a standard story presented in a standard way with a standard wrap up ending. I love that its fully reflective and reflexive in so many ways. And its so deep. There's so much to pick up. I watched it several hours ago and Im ready to watch it again. I think thats the sign of a well done film.
The Kings of Summer (2013)
Fun Quirky Funny but Not Sure What it Is and We Don't Learn Anything Really
Enjoyed it for what it was which was a standard coming of age film wrapped in a quirky vehicle for comedic ad libbing by the likes of Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Eugene Cordero, etc. who do a fantastic and hysterical job (although I did find Offerman's character to be a little too much of an angry ass to allow myself to completely appreciate the clear humorous one liners in his seething bitter attitude toward everything). But the movie is a strange mix. Its both a platform for this kind of free form comedic prowess by some talented comedians and a standard coming of age drama (yes very much a drama in a teen sense) for the main teenage characters who kind of exist in their own little teen soap opera bubble within the body of the film. So you are forced to follow along with the main story of the teens finding themselves, working out their relationships with each other and figuring out whats important in life in very tender and often dramatic ways while this kind of alternative parallel universe whirls around them that's very often funny and almost always distracting and hard to weave in with the main story. It was just a weird mix for me. I guess the film makers were trying to present their worlds in a way that allows us to see how they see it and so they present their parents and the police and society at large as farcical, ludicrous, and almost surreal so we can relate to their plight more. Maybe? So you end up with a world where you have no 'straight man' adults but rather a bunch of bizarre and/or clownish characters that are thoroughly entertaining (the cops are great and the scene where Mullally is going off on them about the Irish being the 'blacks of Europe' was hysterical). There's something to that approach that I appreciate but I found that I wasn't able to stir the weird oil/water mixture of comedic muscle-flexing by some very talented comedians with a teen soap opera by teen actors who don't/cant follow that pattern at all. Oh but with one exception
Dear wonderful Biaggio
Biaggio is my favorite character in this movie and the best character I've seen in a movie in I don't know how many years and thank god for him. I would have appreciated this movie much less without his completely alien bizarre wackiness to balance the other kids (especially Joe) and keep it from becoming some kind of terrible "90210 in the woods" teen garbage puke with no soul and no magic. At first he just seems like a silly annoying throw away weirdo character not worth investing in (which is exactly what the main characters think of him) but as he develops and becomes one of the main characters you embrace him completely just as they do until you are hanging on his every word and action waiting for him to floor you with some other truly wonderful quirky comment or weird look. I couldn't get enough of Biaggio. I would pay money to see a movie where Biaggio is the main character despite the fact that I would know going in that movie would surely suck because he cant be the focus of a story without completely altering his role. But I would go anyway
However, I digress
I enjoyed the movie but in the end I found it lacking a real message. Is it about the parents (and therefore the world) coming around to understand how their kids think so they can relate to them better and not be lunatics like they were before and not try to control them so much? Because losing them made them realize how much they need them around and that their kids are capable of living independently and surviving? Im not sure that works. Is it that teen relationship drama isn't that important in the end and buds are buds? I didn't think they presented the resolution between Joe and Patrick well. And to try to have Kelly be the mediator when she was the cause of the whole thing didn't work for me. That scene where they flip each other off from their cars then both smile is that supposed to smooth everything and make everything better? Is that supposed to be a resolution or are they just saying The resolution is No resolution? Maybe that's a little too indie for me
I feel like Patrick was an ass and that Joe was enormously over reactive and angry in his response (like his father?) and I found myself losing some respect for both characters because of the way that conflict unfolded. But I have a feeling someone will say Im not getting it and Im probably not.
A few plot inconsistencies bothered me too. Patrick goes home and they don't grill him about where Joe is? What?? Also, for the love of god if you are going to have a scene where someone gets dramatically bitten by a "poisonous" snake make sure that snake at least looks like a copper head or a rattle snake or something and not CLEARLY AND OBVIOUSLY like a gopher or a garter snake! Oh my god that was terrible
What is this a middle school play where someone shakes a rope and we just assume it's a snake?
But overall worth watching despite being somewhat uncategorizable (which is certainly no crime if you can pull it off). Its heart is a drama but its body is a comedy. Yet its not a dramedy. In essence this is a teen drama with a comedy oozing all over it (flowing around it?). Not sure if that works necessarily but it was a fun attempt to watch.
Dare (2009)
Enjoyable but losses track
This is a solid film I assumed was going to be a lame teen relationship flick but it turns into a somewhat clever unorthodox relationship flick that happens to utilize teens. Its broken into three parts where each part focuses on one of the three main characters. I liked that aspect of the film because it allowed us to get into the mind of each character pretty well and understand their turmoils and motivations. But the problem is once you're done with one character that character then becomes less deep which rubbed me the wrong way. You have a window into the emotional turmoil going on in Alexa that would allow her to use Johnny the way she does only to have her character fade to a somewhat two dimensional "girlfriend" character which basically acts as a foil to Johnny in his (and the last) bit. Ben fairs even worse I think going from the apparent nerd best friend of Alexa who we assume is secretly longing for her only to be thrown a twist (which was well done in my opinion) that he has actually been longing for Johnny not Alexa. But then once his chapter is done he becomes this terrible aggressive horn dog who only wants to get in Johnnys pants and he loses all the emotional turbulence and likability he had developed during Alexa's and his chapters. Yuck. What a way to ruin a character...
I definitely enjoyed the bagel/banana scene but was unsure what we were supposed to think of Bens mom. Was she fancying Johnny? Was she just there to deliver a metaphor? You think its going somewhere then nothing comes of it. Also didn't like Courtney's character. She seemed a decent enough foil for Alexa at first but she devolves into this weird sad lush at the end whose sole purpose is to host the party where everything falls apart. And what was with that party anyway? Were they purposefully doing things to mess with Johnnys head? Why? Although both characters (Alexa and Ben) come off as selfish in their motives I didn't see them as nefarious or sinister or purposefully wanting to hurt him. Yet that whole scene had the feel of a purposefully planned torture session for Johnny. And we cant totally feel sorry for Johnny either. He gets used but his motivation is ultimately selfish as well. He wants a connection so desperately that he's willing to believe an impossible three headed relationship could actually work out for everyone and is devastated when it becomes clear that no... it cant...
All in all its worth watching despite some plot holes and inconsistencies. I wish they could have figured out a way to keep the characters developed after their chapters were done but thats probably a real trick, understandably so.
An American Haunting (2005)
A Muddled Mess with a Perplexing Twist
So just to be clear, there's no actual ghost or demonic presence in this movie at all. No curse and no real haunting technically. The movie is basically about a living disassociated haunting.
This movie reminds me of The Uninvited which also tries to pull a fast one by appearing to be a traditional ghost movie but breaks down to being only about hallucinations and lies and contains NO supernatural activity at all no matter how much its implied (or lied about in the trailers). Both movies left me feeling a bit empty because they try so hard to accomplish their respective twists of being a ghost film at the same time as NOT being a ghost film (and in fact being about psychological breakdown).
This movie in particular was a muddled mess of metaphors and reality and "hauntings" melding into dreams melding into more and more and MORE scenes of "haunting trauma", many without a climax or an explanation or any kind of bridge to allow the audience to exhale and nod and think they understand whats going on and to prepare themselves for the next scene or to allow us to feel we are making even the tiniest bit of headway in dealing with the situation.
Even without the molestation/disassociation twist being thrown in there, the movie got to be over the top with its continual haunting episodes without relief or the hint of a solution while this poor little girl is getting beat up and thrown around and raped and after a while seems almost catatonic with distress and no one seems able to handle the situation and the entity seems impervious to everything they try. I think it tries to be a little too much Exorcist without any of the depth of that movie. Just a lot of bed scenes of a young girl being tormented by something supernatural while her parents watch helplessly and a priest cant seem to help.
But then you have the twist... which was too much for me. A living poltergeistic projection? What?? And her actually appearing as a ghost of herself at the end was absurd. Im sorry. And not sure if we really needed the book end bits from the "modern" family going through the exact same thing.
Apartment 1303 3D (2012)
Bad acting + Bad writing + Bad inspiration = Bad Movie
This movie is just bad from start to finish. Not in any kind of entertaining way. Just bad... No need to see it. Terrible writing and bad acting come together to make something hard to take seriously at all. Every character is either annoying or vapant (or both). Rebecca De Mornay has fallen a long way since The Trip to Bountiful and Mischa Barton has lost a lot since Sixth Sense (and all she did in that film was throw up). The younger sister was so annoying that you wanted to smack her and her cop boyfriend was wooden and his character was developed terribly. Its like he developed from a throw away character to a significant character and then as soon as hes reached that point he dies in the lamest way. And the ghost doesn't seem like a ghost (except when shes suddenly transforming into smoke..) Shes super aggressive but shes not scary looking or have any sort of supernatural qualities or deformities so she comes off as a sadistic sorority sister bullying people (by pushing them off balconies) rather than a ghost or some sort of supernatural creature. Same is true with the other ghosts. Clearly there's something going on with the little girl. But the superintendent comes off completely like a normal perverted old man. Thats inconsistent. And are we to assume the entire floor has been killed off? I almost laughed when the little girl said "im here to tell people to get out but they never listen..." at the end. And basing a ghost movie in an urban high rise just doesn't work in my opinion. At least in our culture. A splendid (if not a little seedy) downtown apartment has a wonderful view and is filled with people and all the trappings of modern life and a ghost thats only been there for 20 years... Should have based it in a small town cottage or farm or something. The modern urban mixed with the sinister supernatural haunting thing just doesn't work. But then the entire movie doesn't work.
La posesión de Emma Evans (2010)
bad acting; bad story line; not scary; completely clichéd; otherwise OK
Don't waste your time. This movie is simply just a recycling of exorcism clichés with annoying camera work, bad acting and a poorly developed story line.
The set up premise that her uncle showed her intricate diagrams in the hope that she would memorize them, get ticked off over something and invoke Satan on her bathroom floor all so he could prove Satan exists is absurd. Teenagers may be stupid but how many really would cut themselves open and call for Satan to possess them just because mommy grounds them and their life sucks. And then the fact that the audience needs this explained by her in a ten minute monologue outside her mentally slipping mothers bedroom door was lazy spoon feeding. There's better ways to make the audience understand what happened. Piece it together over the course of the film. Have flash backs that extend beyond the bathroom scene. Something...
And the whole possession moments were horrible. Sophie Vavasseur might be able to pull off annoying angsty bratty British teen with a serious attitude and a death wish maybe but she is laughably bad trying to play the devil. Half the time the voice didn't even correspond to her mouth movements!
The scenes between her and her brother seemed forced and stilted. The scene when he dies was especially terrible. Bad acting and way overdone build up to something you see coming all along. So bad in fact that I actually thought hmm maybe there will be some twist where he doesn't die because they are milking the anticipation of his death SO much that they cant possibly just kill him. But nope... He dies... Exactly as you would predict he would...
In fact a lot in the movie seemed forced just to create particular situations (see explanation scene mentioned above). I blame this on the writing. Very little flowed naturally or organically. Tension building was minimal which is not what you want from an exorcism movie. And I had a real issue with them letting a possessed teenage girl run around all the time and not have her locked up somewhere after the first time she acts like the devil and tries to kill people. Why do you think they kept Linda Blair locked up in her bedroom! And she was only 12! An angsty 15 year old with a bad attitude to begin with ALSO possessed by the devil?! Chain her in the basement! But no we'll let her wonder around, go in and out freely, interact with the public and her little brother who shes already tried to kill once, eat breakfast with the family thats left, etc. It made no sense. Oh and if you are going to have an intense scene where you cause a terrible car accident because you hallucinate leaving your friend/cousin(??) appearing very much dead leading to an overly dramatic NO NO NO! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME! crying moment in the middle of the road, don't have the very next scene be oh wait he's going to be OK. No harm done! Yuck...
V/H/S (2012)
Disappointing
Not too much of a 'found footage' fan with a few notable exceptions. It generally tends to be a gimmick more than a useful artistic tool and it so easily seems forced and becomes eye rollingly over the top very easily. This definitely is the case with this film which just seems to be a collection of 'found film' horror shorts cobbled together under the excuse that the idiots from the initial scene who also film themselves doing bad things have to watch each of these tapes while robbing a house before getting killed themselves. This premise is ridiculous and weak for starters. Then so much of the found footage aspect doesn't feel natural and seems forced to try to show the audience the "best parts" in a way that feels edited way too conveniently and in many sequences where the fact that someone is still filming is just hard to buy. We get jumps between random useless "normal" conversation snippets or useless action to gruesome helter skelter action shots where running with the camera seems to be a constant no matter how much of a panic the camera holder may be in and always ending with cameras ALWAYS falling conveniently so that they aim right where something nasty is taking place like disemboweling or fetus removal.
Once I realized there was no connection between any of the films (I was ready for the film to be about Succubus creatures after the first short) and that there was no connection between the initial characters and any of the films, I kind of let go and took in each short. Some are better than others (the first is the best) but the simple fact that the whole film is a big excuse to watch bad found footage films gives the film the feel of something cheap, unimaginative and based on all the dark and prurient desires of your average frat brother. And it really comes off as Blair Witch Project meets Bang Bus because of that...
And I guess we are supposed to be more likely to ignore enormous plot holes in some of the shorts simply because: who cares! they are shorts where the fun is watching people get naked and/or brutally killed in awesome found footage! I can entertain this to a certain extent but when a chick apparently goes into the woods haunted by a phase shifting supernatural killer who kills all her friends and she somehow escapes and she goes BACK to those woods ALONE to set up a series of complex human traps (all 5'2", 110 pounds of her!) to catch said supernatural killer and the killer doesn't hassle her in the process but sure as heck goes after her and her friends when she comes back a third time? sorry...
In the end the film is essentially about 'found film' characters who watch 'found film' tapes and get killed in the process to create yet another 'found film' film. So its like 'found film' squared and its way way too much... Heres a thought: make a real horror movie out of ONE of these stories. Several of them could probably support being a full length feature and not some stunted found footage B movie mutation of a Twilight Zone episode.
As Cool as I Am (2013)
Not tense enough; too disjointed, inconsistent and imbalanced
I thought the film largely lacked tension even at points where there should have been and that combined with the teen coming-of-age perspective made it seem more like a scatter brained after school special then a serious movie about a kid finding herself. They left so many things disconnected and made illogical jumps from one thing to the next. Sara Bolger definitely comes off as too mature for a 15 year old and that throws you some, especially as they are trying to make her character precocious and much smarter (and more mature) then her dimwitted poor choice making mother. And there's no logical consistency from one point in the story to the next. Why do they set up her initial relationship with her long time best friend as if its her destiny and then he's basically removed from the movie other than post cards and a phone call? Whats with that clever scene where they are feeding the dogs and the boy says he wants this to work long term and doesn't want to do anything to risk it like more sex and then BAM shes on him again and hes fine with it and he's gone shortly after? Felt wrong. And her jumping into a car with high school jock dude after all the speeches about being disgusted by people like that and NOT being interested in the least. And getting date raped and then being furious with his friend but getting over it and jumping into bed with him? None of that worked for me. (And why would the jock/prom king cliché character even be interested in her! What was so special about her? Had he made a bet? She wasn't particularly pretty or alluring). Her character wasn't ditzy or insecure enough to justify her actions. They made her into this righteous wise young person who says all the right things and really seems to get it but her actions were completely alien to her character. You can have her be a precocious kid. Just don't have her be the one person in the film that the audience thinks understands the difference between right and wrong (because that character foil is necessary so she can be the counterbalance to her stupid immature parents who make endless dumb decisions). And then we are supposed to believe that the mom was a nun until just recently even though the entire movie she acts like a desperate slut and THATS why Lucy has decided to run out and screw different guys? Because her mom told her she hadnt until recently and she doesn't want to end up like that? No... Doesn't work...
In the end the only message I got from this movie was parents can be dumb and immature and you can be smart and wise for your age but you should still have promiscuous sex with different people just so you don't end up regretting your relationship with your childhood best friend when you are older.
Oh and is her name a reference to the Beatles song? That bothered me the whole film...
I will say the sign I enjoyed the most (and the ONLY scene where I felt any worthwhile tension) was the well laid out dueling scenes where the mom runs into an confronts the man shes cheating with in the store with his family at the exact same time was Lucy's dad comes home unannounced and walks in on her having sex with a guy. The back and forth and increasing tension of both scenes worked well. Claire Danes was especially convincing emotionally during this scene. And we needed more of that kind of uncomfortable tension during the rest of the movie. The rape scene was much too easy to take and she just... gets over it after a while. What?! Are we supposed to assume in the end she going to go back to her original boyfriend once she is done exploring the world and getting with different guys? The movie needed to be more clear on that if so. They just leave that relationship out there. What they presented as destiny before no seems on hold or disconnected and you don't know what to think about it. All the post cards and calls but out she runs with other guys even though we are supposed to accept that shes a smart girl who makes better choices then her mom... And we are given no closure with the last boyfriend who we assume ran off after being attacked by her dad? and she doesn't seem effected by that. And the whole Mario thing creeped me out just slightly. Was he supposed to become a character in the movie? She dwelled on him a little too much for him to be just a chef on TV that inspires her.
In the end, I enjoyed Bolger's performance but I don't think the movie fit together well and it ran flat without enough tension where the things that were being depicted clearly needed tension to make the audience uncomfortable and challenged. The dynamic with the mostly absent dad is overwhelmed by the dynamic with the slutty dumb blonde mom because shes there more often until she abandons her in the end for an old flame. Its not really a coming of age film its more a "My crazy nonsensical family life" film where the actions don't make complete sense.