by ultradamno » Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:19 am
If you haven't seen too many fish out water squares learning a thing or two from the free spirit movies (or if you, like me, recently saw [i]Out There[/i] which by contrast makes this one seem an immortal classic) and you can get past the eccentricity heavy first to point where it settles down and somewhat quietly takes off, you might well be surprised how much you like this movie. The movie clearly prefers it's pot growing hippies but seems to have a sense of humor about their flakiness and a willingness to put the lie to the more pie-eyed optimism of their rhetoric and further resists the smugness that might killed it in other hands by not depicting the Peter Bogdanovich character as monster. Jeremy Strong does a fine job of depicting what amounts to a sheltered cypher of character in the process of growing a personality, Brad Dourif, Frances Conroy (who almost steals the entire movie with one heartbreaking monologue), Chris Messina, an impressive young actress Madison Davenport and fairuza Balk (in a brief role that includes her jazz singing) also come off with good work here. A promising first feature. Currently available On Demand (but just till the end of the week and then it goes into theatrical release)