Laggies (6/10): A talented and funny cast, but a predictable coming of age tale.

“Treat somebody badly enough you just assume they'll be happy to let you go.”

Laggies was one of my most anticipated films from 2014 for several reasons. First of all, Lynn Shelton directed one of my favorite romantic comedies from 2011, Your Sister’s Sister, with clever and witty dialogues and an interesting premise. The other reasons for my high expectations for Laggies revolves around the fantastic cast. Sam Rockwell is an actor who I could watch in any movie, but he is especially fantastic in comedies and coming of age movies (The Way Way Back being one of my favorite performances of his). Ever since Kick-Ass, Chloe Grace Moretz has been one of my favorite child actors and she has grown into a talented and charismatic teen actress. Keira Knightley has delivered in the past as well despite not being one of my favorites, and Kaitlyn Dever gave a refreshing performance in Short Term 12. The director and the cast of Laggies elevated my expectations for this film because I am a fan of everyone involved, but I wasn’t blown away by it the way I thought I would be. Laggies is still a solid coming of age film starring a talented cast with plenty of laughs focusing on a woman who is struggling to live up to her potential and going through some sort of quarter-life crisis.

In Laggies, Keira Knightley plays Megan, a 28 year old well educated woman who can’t find her vocation in life. She lives with her High School boyfriend, Anthony (Mark Webber), and keeps in close contact with her High School friend circle. They have all seemed to move on, some are getting married, others are having their first baby, and they are succeeding in the professional lives. Megan on the other hand is still working for her father and is content with holding up signs in the streets for his company. She is an adolescent trapped in the body of a 28 year old, so in a sense this is a film about adulthood. When her boyfriend proposes, she panics and decides to hide out for a week. After buying some alcohol for a group of teens she befriends them and asks if she can hang low at one of their homes for a week. Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) who lives with her single father, Craig (Sam Rockwell), offers to let her stay at their place. Jeff Garlin plays the role of Megan’s father and Kaitlyn Dever plays one of Annika’s High School friends.

Laggies balances the difficult transition that Megan’s character has to make with comedic and light humor. There is something a bit uncomfortable with the relation between Megan and the young teenagers she befriends, and when Craig confronts her about it, we feel a bit at unease. But the comedy helps lighten the mood and Sam Rockwell is so good that he makes these scenes believable. Keira Knightley gives a strong performance as well and you can feel her uneasiness and inner conflict. The true surprise of the film for me however was Kaitlyn Dever who delivers most laughs. She doesn’t get many scenes, but the few she’s in she is hilarious. Like in most of Shelton’s films she throws some curve balls along the way with some subplots we aren’t expecting, but the end is rather predictable and generic making Laggies feel like another cliched romantic comedy. I may have over-hyped this film and despite not enjoying it half as much as I anticipated I still consider Laggies a solid film that entertains despite not being groundbreaking or memorable. The thing that is fresh about Laggies is that it centers around a female character with a screenplay written by a woman so there is definitely a female voice, but the fact that Shelton didn’t write the screenplay this time was a bit of a disappointment.  

Men, Women & Children (4/10): Reitman's sermon against social media lacks subtlety

“Like it or not, for the moment The Earth is where we make our stand.”

Jason Reitman’s latest film, Men, Women & Children, left me speechless but I don’t mean that in a good way. I was a huge fan of Reitman’s first three films: Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air so I went into this movie with high expectations despite his recent misses with Young Adult and Labor Day. Juno is one of my favorite films so I still look forward to what Reitman is working on next, but I sure hope he teams up with Diablo Cody soon because his scripts lack that sharp and witty dialogue. The greatest problem with this film (which failed to connect with audiences in the theater making less than 1 million at the box office) is that it feels too preachy. Reitman screams out his message about the dangers of social media in the most clichéd ways. First, he establishes several familiar characters that play a certain stereotype with the purpose of getting his message across. For instance you have the over protective mother who is highly exaggerated in the way she controls what her daughter is doing and who she is chatting with, then you have the other extreme where a mother is managing her daughter’s life in order for her to become famous by uploading sexy pictures of her in a website, and finally you have a father who has trouble communicating with his son and basically lays off of him after his wife has abandoned them. These characters all play certain stereotypes and have no personality whatsoever. Reitman also tries to tackle other familiar social issues like porn addiction, unfaithfulness, anorexia, and video gaming by portraying how social media has changed the way we live our lives. The message is heavy handed and we’ve seen it portrayed many times in the past in better films. Another issue I had with Men, Women, and Children is that it lacks subtlety in the way the message should be delivered. It is also heavily one-sided and never tries to portray the positive side of social media. My final complaint has to do with Reitman’s decision of including a voice narration from Emma Thompson with scenes of a satellite traveling across the galaxy showing how small our planet is in the vastness of our universe. It was too ambitious for a film that never feels authentic or groundbreaking. 

Perhaps the greatest thing about Men, Women, and Children are the performances from the impressive cast. Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt play a struggling married couple very well. Sandler gives a very restrained performance as he has done in past dramas and once again proves that he has a range when it comes to acting. Reitman could have taken a similar approach with this film and been more subtle and restrained in the way he was trying to deliver the message. Jennifer Garner and Judy Greer are given perhaps the most exaggerated characters in the film so many people might have a problem with their performances, but I thought they delivered strong roles despite the poor material they had to work with. Breaking Bad fans will also be delighted to see Dean Norris on screen again as he delivers in his supporting role. The teens in this film also give convincing performances beginning with Ansel Elgort who is the football star of his High School, but decides to give up on playing the sport and becomes addicted with online video gaming. Kaitlyn Dever, who was great in Short Term 12, delivers once again as the teen whose interactions are overseen by her overprotective mother. Olivia Crocicchia plays the sexy teen who is encouraged by her mother and dreams of becoming famous. Elena Kampouris plays the anorexic teen who is searching for acceptance from her crush. The performances are all solid and despite the fact that there are many different storylines they all get sufficient screen time. The only problem is that they all play familiar stereotypes and I didn’t find a distinct personality in anyone of these characters. They all seem to be playing a specific role in order to deliver a message. J.K. Simmons, who frequently collaborates with Reitman, also has a small role in this film but he is underused. This drama failed to connect with me perhaps because the timing of the film was a bit off and it also lacked subtlety. 

My Review: Short Term 12 (10/10)

"You need to get ready because it's so unbelievable it's going to seem fake, but I promise you it's not, Grace will vouch for me...It's a storytellers wet dream."

Every once in a while a surprising film like Short Term 12 comes around reminding me why I love cinema so much. This is only my second five star review from 2013 and this small indie absolutely hit all the right notes with me taking me through a wide range of emotions thanks to its perfect balanced mix of comedy and touching drama. I was drawn to these characters from the very opening scene and was completely engaged with the story. Having visited a foster care facility a couple times last year and spent some time with kids going through similar situations, this film really hit home and helped me empathize more with them. In a way I kind of felt like Nate, the new counselor in this film who didn't connect right away with the kids and there was not much he could do to help considering he had no idea where they were coming from. On the other hand, the two other counselors, Grace and Mason, really connected with the children because they came from similar backgrounds and understood how they were feeling. Short Term 12 writer and director, Destin Cretton, uses this film as a vehicle to let the viewer have a better understanding of the social situation these kids go through. I don't know if this would've worked so well if it weren't for the incredibly touching performances from the cast. Brie Larson is so great in this film, she hit all the right notes, and in some way she reminded me of Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone. She has that same potential and her career will definitely take off after this. She deserves an Oscar nomination because she's that good. Her co-lead, John Gallagher Jr. also delivers a terrific performance and if we haven't heard much about him it's because Larson steals most of the thunder here. Even the kids in this film were terrific and that's why I'm giving this film the highest possible grade because it does everything right.

Grace (Brie Larson) is one of the young counselors at Short Term 12, a foster care facility for at risk teenagers. Along with Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), with whom she's in a relationship, they look after these kids who have come from a troubled past. The film opens with Mason welcoming a new counselor named Nate (Rami Malek), and he shares a story with him about his first day which didn't go too great. Then they introduce some of the kids to him: there's Marcus (Keith Stanfield) who's about to turn 18 and therefor will be leaving the facility soon, Sammy (Alex Calloway) who's going through a deep psychological trauma, and Luis (Kevin Hernandez) who's easygoing but enjoys bullying Marcus. A few days later a new teenage girl named Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever) arrives at the foster care center who seems to be deeply scarred. Grace begins to connect with her and realizes they have come from a similar past. Grace and Mason are both excellent counselors, mostly because they have come from a troubled past themselves, and despite helping these kids they also have to deal with their own scars in life if they want their relationship to work. 

I loved the way that Cretton decided to open the film with Mason telling Nate a story, and then deciding to end it with another one. The structure of this film was just perfectly executed and I loved the balance it maintained. There were several different plots going on as each kid was going through different problems. The final scene in this film literally gave me goose bumps all over my body. Many people had an issue with it ending with such a positive note, but I thought it was perfect. Larson is a major reason why this film worked so well, her character Grace is just that: a graceful person who is doing her best to help these kids while at the same time trying to deal with her own demons. Dever and Stanfield also deliver powerful secondary performances and each one of them shares a memorable scene with one of their counselors as they try to express their feelings through different ways: Marcus does so by rapping and Jayden by reading a story. These two scenes are extremely powerful and emotional and they stand out in the film without feeling forceful or manipulative at all. This film just has so much heart and it's no surprise it has such a high rating (99% on Rottentomatoes) because it really is a vivid portrait that draws us in to these characters troubled lives in the pursuit and need of healing. Brie Larson's Grace has just become my favorite heroine of the year. That octopus story will stick with me forever, there was a lot of powerful stuff in this film.