3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, dramatic intensity and considerable bad behavior by teens
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.3.17
This could be subtitled Mean Girls Meets Groundhog Day.
But while there’s considerable
truth to that mash-up designation, Maria Maggenti’s adaptation of Lauren Oliver’s
young adult novel is reasonably inventive in its own right; the narrative
doesn’t succumb to potential pitfalls, and a third-act twist is a clever
surprise. Director Ry Russo-Young draws credible performances from her young
cast, and the result is a solid improvement over her earlier efforts (the
little-seen Nobody Walks and You Won’t Miss Me).
But Russo-Young and Maggenti
partially sabotage their efforts with superfluous voice-over narration and a
wholly unnecessary flash-forward framing device, both of which imply that we
dumb viewers aren’t savvy enough to follow the story on its own merits. While
this likely is an effort to replicate the inner thoughts of the central
character in Oliver’s book, film is a different medium. Contemplative narration
that works on the page falls flat on the screen, feeling too much like a New
Age sermon. (“Maybe for you there’s a tomorrow...”)
All concerned should have more
faith: The core gimmick isn’t that hard to follow, and Zoey Deutch’s heartfelt
performance easily anchors the action.
She stars as Samantha (Sam)
Kingston, who wakens on what she assumes will be an average day ... which is to
say, another opportunity to behave like the other condescending, insufferably
spoiled bee-yatches in her posse: Ally (Cynthy Wu), Elody (Medalion Rahimi) and
most particularly the hateful Lindsay (Halson Sage). All four wear upper-class
entitlement on their designer sleeves. (Indeed, everybody in this community
seems to have more money than God.)
This particular day is marked at
the local high school with a pre-Valentine’s Day celebration dubbed Cupid Day,
when single roses are sent by secret admirers. Alas, this is just another cruel
exercise in marginalization: The most popular kids compete to see who can amass
the biggest armload of roses, while those left out feel even more unloved.
Which, in turn, gives Lindsay
another opportunity to taunt those she despises: notably “weird girl” Juliet
(Elena Kampouris) and punkish lesbian Anna (Liv Hewson). Sam, Ally and Elody go
along with such spiteful behavior because, well, that’s what friends do.
Everything about this day is
difficult to endure — for us, as viewers — because of the relentless,
self-centered arrogance. It begins when Sam wakes up, and contemptuously
dismisses a sweet gesture by little sister Izzy (Erica Tremblay), and is
scheduled to conclude after an unsupervised, late-night party, when she loses
her virginity to boyfriend Rob (Kian Lawley), a self-centered lout in his own
right.
But the party doesn’t go as
planned, climaxed by a horrific bit of mob mentality straight out of Stephen
King’s Carrie. The shaken drive home
— Lindsay at the wheel, Sam riding shotgun, the other two girls in the rear
seat — proves equally, suddenly traumatic...
...and then Sam wakens, and it’s
the morning of Feb. 12 again. With all her memories of the “previous” day fully
intact.
Understandly confused, but
willing to dismiss this as a bad dream, Sam navigates the day’s activities with
a mounting sense of déjà vu. The same stuff happens, all the way to the
terrifying climax...
...and then re-set. Again. And
again. And again and again and again.
At which point, a film that thus
far has been difficult to watch — the spoiled behavior and casual cruelty having
been hard to endure — becomes much more interesting. Sam starts to resist
repetition, and discovers that things can be changed; modification alters key
events, ingeniously revealing fringe details that are key to what our heroine
slowly realizes is necessary atonement.
Russo-Young and Maggenti
structure the second and third acts quite shrewdly, unveiling fresh mini-dramas
and showing familiar events from different points of view. (I’m grateful, for
starters, that we aren’t required to suffer the malicious “mean girl” acts more
than the one time.)
Ordinarily — and properly — we’d
get sucked into the mystery, speculating where all of this is leading, and
wondering if redemption is possible. But that damn framing device destroys any
possibility of suspense; we already know
the outcome.
And that’s a shame. The
impressively busy Deutch — five films in 2016, and an equal number scheduled
for release this year — puts considerable emotion into what becomes a very
complex performance. She’s persuasively self-centered in the first act, as a
thoughtless teen accustomed to taking her parents and younger sister for
granted; later, her initial confusion cycles smoothly through an unusual five
stages of grief.
Bill Murray played his
character’s reaction to such repetition for laughs, in Groundhog Day. But this film isn’t a comedy — not ever — and Deutch’s terror is quite
credible, once she realizes that she’s trapped in a particularly bleak sort of
purgatory. Her slow adjustment to this situation, and subsequent adaptation,
are equally convincing: Much as we initially loathe Sam, Deutch transforms her
into somebody whose fate matters.
Sage gets significant mileage
from a dismissive smirk, and Lindsay — unlike Sam — initially seems
irredeemable. But this, too, is a girl with a hidden side; Sage eventually
ensures that Lindsay can’t be dismissed as a one-note shrike.
Logan Miller is equally strong as
Sam’s childhood friend Kent, who clearly has carried a torch for her ever
since. Kent’s awkward attempts to catch Sam’s attention are endearing, and
Miller makes him the sincere, quietly loyal individual who’s never quite been
able to be included in the highest social clique ... nor would he really wish
to be.
Jennifer Beals, as Sam’s mother,
makes the most of a brief but sweetly thoughtful chat with her daughter. Hewson
is appropriately spunky as Anna, and Kampouris makes poor Juliet look
shockingly fragile: a heartbreaking depiction of vulnerability and
victimization.
Wu and Rahimi, on the other hand,
do little to make Ally and Elody more than one-dimensional hangers-on; at
times, I found it difficult to tell them apart.
For the most part, though, we’re
quite emotionally involved once the story builds to its compelling finale. The
moral truths found in Oliver’s book are well represented, as is the painful realization
that all actions have consequences. There’s much to be learned here, and
Russo-Young and Maggenti deserve credit for presenting the journey with such
sincerity.
A
little kindness goes a long way: an important lesson, in these divisive times.
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