The movie tells the story of Davina (played by the lovely Natalia Dyer), a teenage girl diving into her first "adult relationship". The object of her affection is a bad boy named Sterling (played by Peter Vack). Both actors are receiving accolades on the festival circuit for their work in this film. Understandably so.
This is not your typical movie about young lovers. This film isn't for teenage girls. This film is for all of us women who have survived first love - it is a bittersweet trip down memory lane - a look in the mirror for us all.
Davina & Sterling's whirlwind romance takes them on a short roadtrip - an escape from the reality of their difficult lives - but it isn't the miles they cover, or even the intensity of their physical attraction that makes this film interesting. It is the beautiful mind of writer/director Leah Meyerhoff and her ability to balance reality with fantasy. We - as young girls falling in love for the first time - we can not tell fantasy from reality and that is quite honestly what ruins our lives. We are lucky to get out unscathed, unwed, unpregnant. Some of us do - and some of us don't. Meyerhoff reminds us of these emotions - taking us between fantasty and reality, between past and present, at a dizzying pace. And isn't that how it really felt? So intense, so surreal, we didn't know if any of it was real?
I fell in love as a young girl once, far too young to understand the consequences of my actions. Far too young to control my emotions and my hormones. I understand the delicate dance between childhood and womanhood and I was overwhelmed at times at the films ability to really make us see that we were children. If only the young women in our lives would listen to us now - trust us when we say "I've been there!! Let me be your lesson so you don't have to find out the hard way!" But they won't. And we didn't. And we all have our stories and our war wounds and we survive.
Beautifully shot and great story telling - a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
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