Apologies for leaving the blog so bereft this month but I had to jet off to Dubai for work and haven't had much time to post. However, one of the advantages of the long flight is that I got to watch some movies, including Laggies. This was a movie I randomly noticed in the theatre when I went to see something else; it seemed interesting but it disappeared before I could return to watch it (probably because no one else noticed it). Starring the very interesting pairing of Keira Knightley and Chloe Grace Moretz, this is a slight but sweet story about a woman who just can't seem to get it together and her weird friendship with a teenager that finally gives her some perspective on adulthood.
Knightley plays Megan, a woman in her twenties who is very adrift. She thought she wanted to be a therapist, but in the midst of her training realized this wasn't the life for her. Now she keeps making plans to explore career options and get her life in order, but instead she's just doing a couple of hours' work as a sign spinner outside her father's office and generally being a wastrel. She still hangs out with her high school friends, one of whom, Allison (Ellie Kemper), is getting married and is very frustrated at Megan's inability to act like an adult. Finally, at Allison's wedding, Megan's boyfriend (who was her high school sweetheart) proposes to her, an unexpected leap towards adulthood that jolts her out of her stupor.
Bewildered by the proposal, she comes up with an excuse that she needs to go attend a career development seminar for a week and takes off. Instead, she ends up crashing with Annika (Moretz), a teenage girl that she met in a supermarket parking lot. Annika lives with her lawyer father, Craig (the charming Sam Rockwell), who is understandably confused when he finds a grown woman having a sleepover with his daughter. However, after talking to Megan, he decides that while she's a little strange and lost, she can certainly be trusted. As Megan goes off on adventures with Annika and has light but ultimately meaningful conversations with Craig, she gradually starts to sort through her life.
Written by Andrea Seigel and directed by Lynn Shelton (naturally it takes a female writer and director to get a movie that passes the Bechdel test), Laggies is one of those movies that is small in scope but has a big heart. You can predict how the story will go, but it is delightful to see how it gets there. Populated by talented and likeable leads, it is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, both funny and frighteningly accurate about how it feels to be going through a quarter-life crisis. Most millennials could probably find something to love about this movie (if you don't relate to Megan, you'll relate to the super put-together Allison), and the way that Annika and her friends talk to each other is much more indicative of the way teens speak than what you'd find on the Disney channel. Despite the bizarre concept, at its core Laggies is a very honest and insightful movie. So seek it out this weekend, because this is a movie that certainly deserves to be seen by many more people.
No comments:
Post a Comment